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* **i Ctfis)
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY
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The WORLD'S WORK
Volume XIX
NOVEMBER, 1909, to JPRIL, 1910
A HISTORY OF OUR TIME
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1910
I "7
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Ptfl«r<tf
MAY f A 1910
Copyright, tqlo
Pi'ublrtfay. Pn^r S" Company
Digitized by
Google
INDEX
(•Illustrated Articles. Editorial* in Italics.)
^J/iOUTa IjU of iMin Humbug
-" Abofd the Devil's Quoting Imw
A bout the President and Patience
. I houi Truth
Abstract Science at Concrete Work
Accident Policy: How lo Tell a Good From a Bad One
.-1 dor. A Great English Actor
Aerial Navigation
Airship and International L'niiv
In Fifty Years '.
Men of Flight
Men of the Air
Airica. World's Black Problem (B. L. Putnam Weale)
After Leopold — What?
A )ter Mr. Harriman
Agriculture (See also Conservation)
Hints o] Good Industrial Leadership
Homes in Waste Places (Bolton Half)
How Cooperation Has Enriched Denmark (Selden
Smyser)
Mr. Htil's Articles and Others
•Our Southern Mountaineers (Thomas R. Dawley, Jr.)
Southern Farmer Coming Into His Own
Story of Two Chicago Families
•What We Must Do to Be Fed (James J. Hill)
American Builders in Canada (C. M. Keys)
A merican College m Asia
•American Sculptor in Rome (Kalberine H. Wrenshall)
Anarchists: How Anarchists Are Made
Antwerp: A Business Lesson (H. T. Sherman)
Cities at Work
Apostle to Labor (C. M. Meyer)
Archbishop's Literary Sons
Art and Architecture
•American Sculptor in Rome (Kathcrine H. Wren-
shall)
A rt Prospects in A merica
•Chicago: Its Struggle and its Dream (William Bay-
ard Hale)
•Decorator of Public Buildings (Leila Mechlin)
Mr. McKim's Great Career
•Reminiscences of an American Painter (Klihu Ven-
der) 1 2450, 1 2559, 1 2684,
Asia. A merican Colleges in Asia
As Others See l's
IIAN'KS (See Finance;
D Belgium. After Leopold - What?
Bell Telephone Company: The Telephone as It Is To-day (Her-
bert W Casson)
Benson. An Archbishop's Literary Sons
Blzgest Problem in the Country
•Birth of the Telephone (Herbert X. Casson)
Books (Sec Literature)
•Bowery. Its Battered Hulks (Alexander Irvine)
•Brown Man of India and Egypt (B. L. Putnam Weale)
Building of a Money-Trust (C. M. Keys)
Burglary Insurance: When Is It Good?
BusinettAesson from Antwerp (Harry Tuck Sherman)
BusincTOIen's PaceJJ)r. Luther H. Gulick)
pa<;f
12204
12107
12410
12420
12647
I2324
12207
12537
1253H
I220,f
I264S
12327
"53»
123II
12312
123Q8
1228s
I2209
12704
12202
12625
12226
I2476
12319
12255
12318
12512
12210
12217
I2763
*22 55
I2646
12792
12*70
I2 206
128l<;
12310
12 205
»2 538
12775
1276s
'2534
12OOQ
12365
12204
12618
12O52
12512
12438
CANADA
^ American Builders (C. M. Keys) 12476
Comfort in Old Age by Governmetit Help 12313
Xew Chapter in Immigration 1 27 58
Cannonism: What Cannonism Is 127 <; 5
Cannon, Joseph G. Speaker or the People? (William Bavurd
Hale)... r 12805
Caribbean America 1 2 <; 4 4
Central Bank: What It Would Do (Robert L. McCabe) 12304
Chicago Court: A Wonderful Court of Justice 1 2420
Court that Does Its Job (William Bayard Hale) 12605
Swift and Final Justice 1 2760
•Chicago — Its Struggle and Its Dream (William Bayard Hale) 12702
Chief Causes 0} Death 1 2 128
China
Crane's Dismissal 1 2 no
*Lost Opportunity on the Pacific (Jarno J. Hill) 124M.?
Propping the Open Door 12410
PAGE
City Government
Business Lesson From Antwerp (H. T. Sherman) 12512
♦Chicago - Its Struggle and Its Dream (William
Bayard Hale) 1 2:02
Cities at Work 122 10
Confessions of an Inspector of Public Works (Ben-
jamin Brooks) 1 2 s ^
Court That Does Its Job (William Bayard Hale) 1200;
Starting the Next Generation Right 1 2214
Wonderful Court oj Justice 1 2420
Cleveland, Roosevelt, Taft 12513
College (See Education)
Comfort in Old .Age by Government Help ^i\\
Commerce
•From Minnesota to the Sea (Tames 1. Hill) 12338
•Future of Our Waterways (James J. Hill) 12770
•Lost Opportunity on the Pacific (James J. Hill) 12J82 .
Confessions of an Inspector of Public Works (Benjamin Brooks) 1 2 555
Confessions of a Successful Teacher 12221
Conflict of Color (B. L. Putnam Weale)
•Ill Brown Man of India and Egypt 12264
IV The World's Black Problem 1 2327
Confusion of Issues 1 242 1
Congress (See Politics)
Conservation
About the Devil's Quoting Law 12107
Conservation Inquiry 1 2532
Delays of Conservation Progress 1 2644
Gifford Pinchot, the Awakener of the Nation (Walter
H. Page) 12662
•Our Wealth in Swamp and Desert (James T. Hill) 12595
Water- Powers — Action Now or Trouble Later 12360
Consumptive's Holy Grail ("The Patient") 1233 4
Conversation: Is America a Conversational Desert 12646
Cook's Difficult Position 1231 1
Cooperation: Happy Humanity (Frederik Van Keden). . 12588, 12658
How Cooperation Enriched Denmark (Selden Smyser) 12285
Corporations (See also Finance)
.•I Good Result of the Corporation -Tax 12313
Corporation Regulation Inevitable 12755
How the Public Gets Control 12200
How to Regulate Corporations (James J. Hill 1 12730
Other Trusts than the Standard Oil 12423
Rulers of the Wires (C. M. Keys) 12726
Standard Oil Decision 1 242 1
Who Owns the Trusts — the Rich or the Poort 12424
Cost of Living
Biggest Problem in the Country 12 534
Ever-Rising Cost of Living 1 2424
High Cost of Living to Continue (Arthur W. Page). . 12770
How Immigrants Solve the Cost of Living (Lewis E.
MacBrayne) 1 2813
How lo Make Income Meet Expense 12181
I^t Us Stofi Waste 1274 1
Court that Does Its Job (William Bayard Hale) 12695
( 'rune's Dismissal 12310
Criminal: Why Is the Criminal ? 12647
♦T^ECORATOR of Public Buildings (Leila Mechlin) 12370
*-J Delays of Conservation Progress 1 2644
Denmark: How Cooperation Has Enriched It. (Selden Smyser) 12285
Difference Between Property and Power 1 2 1 00
Divorce: True View of Increasing Divorces 12426
Drainage (See Conservation)
Dreadnoughts: How Dreadnoughts Have Already Brought War 12315
purcATiox
A-* About Truth 1 2420
. I merican Collect s in Asia 12310
Confessions of a Successful Teacher 12221
Garrett School for Deaf Children ( Men In Action) 12626
learning to Be Good for Something 12536
Mr. Hill's Article* and Others. 12209
President Wttodrow Wilson, of Primeton 12762
School with a Clear Aim (John Foster Carr) 12363
♦Teaching Morals by Photographs (Walter H. Page-) 1271s
Trouble with the Teacher (William McAndreu). 12510- 125s.'
Eiloris to Harness the Waves and the Sun 1 2763
*Eg\pt Brown Man of India and Egypt (B. L Putnam
\\ call- ) 1 2f64
Digitized by VjOOQLC
INDEX — Continued
PACE
Eight Per Cent, on Your Money 1 2435
Enfeebled Supreme Court 1231 1
* England and Germany: Will they Fight? (William Bayard
Hale) 12571
England
Social Revolution in England 12317, 12629
Why England Loves Its Lords 12538
Ever-Rising Cost of Living 12424
♦Ezckiel, Sir Moses: American Sculptor in Rome (Katherine
H. Wrenshall) 12255
PACING the New Year 12405
** Fair Play in Postal Rates 12532
Farming (See Agriculture)
Ferrer: How Anarchists Are Made 12318
Finance (See also Investment)
After Mr. Harriman 12311
Biggest Problem in the Country 12534
Building of a Money-Trust (C. M. Keys) 12618
Difference Between Property and Power 12100
Ever-Rising Cost of Living 12424
Good Result of the Corporation-Tax 12313
How to Regulate Corporations (James J. Hill) 12730
Little Stories of Business Life 12431
Other Trusts than the Standard Oil 12423
Punishment for the Dummy Director 12201
Raising Money in the Home Town 1*656
Red Flag of Warning 12760
Rulers of the Wires (C. M. Keys) 12726
Stacking the Cards in the Wall Street Game * 12645
Standard Oil Decision 12421
Task for the Conscience of the Future 12762
United States Bank Again 12312
Westerner and His Trolley-Line 12322
What a Central Bank Would Do (Robert L. McCabe) 12304
Who Oicns the Trusts — the Rich or the Poort 12424
Flying Machines (See Aerial Navigation)
Folly of Being Merely Rich 12536
Forbes-Robertson, Johnstone: A Great English Actor 12207
Forestry (See Conservation)
♦From Minnesota to the Sea (James T. Hill) 12338
From the Bottom Up (Alexander Irvine)
V. First Struggles in America 12281
♦VI. ♦The Battered Hulks of the Bowery 12365
♦VII. Life Among the "Squatters" 12448
VIII. A Visit to the Old Home 12586
♦Future of Our Waterways (James J. Hill) 1 2779
(BARRETT School for Deaf Children (Men in Action) 12626
^* ♦Germany and England — Will They Fight? (William
Bayard Hale) 12571
Getting Well At Home (One Getting Well) ! 12773
Gifford Pinchot, the Awakencr of the Nation (Walter H. Pag-) 12662
Glad Christmas 1 2293
Good Result of the Corporation-Tax 1 23 13
Good Results of Railroad Pensions 1 2425
Gordon, Senator 1 2750
Government (Sec Politics)
Great Britain (See England)
Great English Actor 12207
UAPPY Humanity (Fredcrik Van Eeden) 12588, 12658
1 * Harriman E. H. — After Mr. Harriman 1231 1
Difference Between Property and Power 12 109
Little Stories About E. H. Harriman 12216
Hawley, Edwin (Men in Action) 12289
Hays, Charles Melville: American Builders in Canada (CM.
Kevs) 12476
Health '
About a Lot of Latin Humbug 12204
Chief Causes of Death 12428
Consumptive's Holy Grail ("The Patient") 12333
Getting Well at Home (One Getting Well) 12773
Healing Camp on the Roof 12428
Mr. Hill's Articles and Others 12209
New Emancipation for the South 1 23 16
Pace of Business Men (Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick).. 12438
Rural Health by Cooperative Work 12764
Saving Babies and Killing Men 12427
Self-Cure with Fresh Cream (Dr. B.]. Kendall) 12774
Should Doctors Tell the Truth? (The Patient) 12547
Starting the Next Generation Right 12204
High Cost of Living to Continue (Arthur \\ . Page) 12770
Highwavs of Progress (James J. Hill)
♦I. What We Must Do to Be Fed 12226
♦II. From Minnesota to the Sea 12338
♦III. Lost Opportunity on the Pacific 12482
♦IV. Our Wealth in Swamp and Desert 12595
V. How to Regulate Corporations 12730
♦VI. Future of Our Waterways 12770
Hill's Articles and Others 12209
Hints of Good Industrial Leadership 12312
Holland: Happy Humanity (Fredcrik Van Eeden) 12588, 12658
Homes in Waste Places (Bolton Hall) .* 12308
Hookworm: New Emancipation for the South 12316
How Anarchists Are Made 12318
How Dreadnoughts Have Already Brought War 1231 5
How Immigrants Solve the Cost of Living (Lewis E. MacBrayne) 12813
How Cooperation Has Enriched Denmark (Selden Smyser) 12285
PACt
How Much Insurance Should I Carry? 1*437
How the Public Gets Control 12200
How to Become a Writer (Helen Keller) 1 2765
How to Make Income Meet Expense 12108
How to Regulate Corporations (James J. Hill) 1 2730
How to TeU a Good Accident Policy From a Bad One 12324
Hudson-Fulton Celebration 1 2203
T MMIGRANTS: How They Solve the Cost of Living (Lewis
1 F. MacBrayne)
Immigration: A New Chapter in Immigration
Income-Tax: Small Chance for the Income-Tax
♦India. Brown Men of India (B. L. Putnam Weale)
In Fifty Years
♦Inland Waterways. Future of Our Waterways (James J.
Hill)
Inspector of Public Works — Confessions (Benjamin Brooks) . .
Insurance
12K13
1275K
12757
1226a
1253*
12770
How Much Insurance Should I Carry?
How to Tell a Good Accident Policy from a Bad One
Insuring Your Life Insurance
Lending a Hundred Millions to Individuals During the
Panic
Swapping Horses for Insurance
When Burglary Insurance Is Good
Interlaken: School with a Clear Aim (John Foster Carr)
Investment
Eight Per Cent, on Your Money
Investor Who Takes a Chance
Little Deal in Real-Estate
Odd Method of Investment
Sign-Posts on the Road to Ruin
What Every Buyer of Irrigation Bonds Should Know . .
Irrigation (See Conservation)
Irrigation Bonds (See Investment)
Irvine, Alexander: Autobiography 12281. 12365, 12448,
(Men in Action)
Is America a Conversational Desert?
Is America Changing the Physical Types of Ment
Is Business-Like Government Possible?
Issue that the President Must Meet
JAPAN
J ♦Lost Opportunity on the Pacific (James J . Hill )
Propping the Open Door
Johnson, Governor John A. (Men in Action)
Justice
Court that Does Its Job (William Bayard Hale)
Supreme Court Enfeebled
Other Trusts Than the Standard Oil
Standard-Oil Decision
Swift and Final Justice
Why Is the Criminal?
Wonderful Court of Justice
KENNEDY, JOHN S.
Kilull* Prrtstu-* in t
( Men in Action) .
Kindly Presence in a Cold World
King, John (Men in Action)
Z EARNING to Be Good — for Something
Lending a Hundred Millions to Individuals During the
Panic
Let Us Stop Waste
Library of Autographed Books (Herbert Randolph Gait)
Literature
Archbishop's Literary Sons
As Others See Us
How to Become a Writer (Helen Keller) .•
Library of Autographed Books (Herbert R. Gait)
Literature of "New Though ters" (Frances Maule
Bjorkman)
Managing Editor's New Year Letter to a Frequent Con-
tributor
Some Good Books on Polar Exploration
United States Through Foreign Spectacles
Why I Wrote "A Girl of the Limberlost" (Mrs. Gene
Stratton-Porter)
Why I Wrote "From My Youth Up." (Mrs. Margaret
E. Sangster)
Why I Wrote "The Lords of High Decision" (Mere-
dith Nicholson)
Why I Wrote "The Master" (Irving Bacheller)
Little Stories About E. H. Harriman
Little Stories of Business Life
Loeb, Jacques: Abstract Science at Concrete Work
♦Lost Opportunity on the Pacific (James J. Hill)
VfACKAY COMPANIES: Rulers of the Wires (C. M. Keys)
1V1 Managing Editor's New Year Letter to a Frequent Con-
tributor
Maryland: To What Depths in Maryland
McKim's Great Career
Men in Action
Garrett School
Hawley, Edwin
Irvine, Alexander
iohnson, Gov. John A
Lennedy, John S t. . .
King> jAn Digitized by V^rOOQ l(?
12437
12324
127*8
12214
1*543
I2652
I2363
12435
12212
12766
123IV
12654
1254C
I2S«6
12290
. 12646
12536
12759
12196
I2482
12310
1 24O I
I26Q5
12311
12423
12421
I2760
12647
12^20
I25lJt
I27.'Q
12-,0^
122 IJ
127. I
I 2K38
12^63
12205
1276S
I2838
12471
12431
I2208
12430
>254<
12544
12433
12434
12216
12431
12647
12^82
12726
12.131
12197
12206
12626
12289
12200
12J01
125M
I2..QJ
INDEX — Continued
Men in Action— Continued
Pensacoia, Fla.
Spreckeb, John D
Stevens, John F
Stratbcona. Lord
VedderrHihu
Wood, Rev. S. S
Yoakum, B. F
Men of Flight
Men of the Air
Mike Halloran, Optimist ( W. I. Scandlin)
* Millet, Francis D.: A Decorator of Public Buildings (Leila
Mechlin)
Mines: Saving Babies and Killing Men
Money-Trust (C. M. Keys)
* Moral Education Board: Teaching Morals by Photographs
(Walter H. Page).
Moral Standards of Two Periods
Morgan, J. P.: Building of a Money-Trust (C .M. Keys)
My Business Life (N. O. Nelson) 12387.
RATIONAL OPPORTUNITY: A Business Postal Depart-
♦Negro at the' North Pole' "(Matthew X/ Hereon). '. .
Negroes
Learning to Be Good — for Something
To What Depths in Maryland
World's Black Problem (B. L. Putnam Weale)
Nelson, N. O.: My Business life 13387.
New Argument for Permanent Peace
New Chapter in Immigration.
PAGE
1240a
12513
12514
"514
12290
12400
12400
12203
1264 s
12326
12370
12427
12618
1*715
12761
12618
12504
New Emancipation for the South.
•'New Thought" — T
- Tradingin the Holy Spirit
"New Though ters" and Their Literature (Frances Maule
Bjorkman)
North Pole
Cookfs Difficult Position
Negro at the North Pole (Matthew A. Henson)
Some Good Books on Polar Exploration
Northwest (See West)
Note of Warning
Notes Made on the Journey With Mr. Taft
0E
\DD method of Investment
' 'Oriental Trade: Lost Opportunity on the Pacific (James
J. HUI) .„..../. .....
Other " Trusts" than ths Standard OH
Our Debt to Dr. Wiley (Edwin Bjorkman)
♦Our Southern Mountaineers (Thomas R. Dawley, Jr)
♦Our Wealth in Swamp and Desert (James J. Hill)
Outlook for the Next Congress
pACE of Business Men (Dr. Luther H. Gulick)
♦Painter: Reminiscences of an American Painter (Elihu
Vedder) 12459, "559, "684,
Peace and War
Airship and International Unity
Caribbean America. .;.
♦England and Germany: Will They Fight? (William
Bayard Hale)
How Dreadnoughts Have Already Brought War
A New Argument for Permanent Peace
Peace for Business Reasons
Pensacoia, Fla. (Men in Action)
Comfort in Old Age by Government Help
Good Results of Railroad Pensions
•Photographs to Teach Morals (Walter H. Page)
Pinchot, Gifford: The Awakener of the Nation (Walter H.
„, Page)
Players at the Political Game
Pilar Exploration: Some Good Books on Polar Exploration
Politics
♦Chicago — Its Struggle and Its Dream (William Bay-
Clevetand, Roosevelt] ' Taft'. '..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.
Confusion of Issues
Corporation Regulation Inevitable
For Pair Play in Postal Rates
Good Result of the Corporation-Tax
Is Busmess4tke Government Possible9
National Opportunity — A Business Postal Depart-
Notes Made' on the Journey with Mr'. Taft. '.'.'....'...
Outlook for the Next Congress
Players at the Political Game
Politics without the Politician
* Pork-Band" Continued
President and the People
Small Chance for the Income-Tax.
Speaker or the People? (William Bayard Hale).
Tariff J""" "*w * "*
Tariff Will Not Down
Victorious Movement or a Revolt
What " Casmonism" Is
Poual Rates— Pair Play in Postal Rates
Poual Department— A National Opportunity— A Business Postal
Department
Praise and Blame and Error
"643
12825
12536
12107
12327
12504
12314
1*758
12316
12846
12471
12311
12825
12208
"517
12307
12310
12482
12423
"443
12704
"595
"755
12438
12815
"537
12533
12571
12315
123M
12315
12402
12313
12425
12715
12662
12531
12208
12792
12531
12421
12755
12532
12313
12759
12643
12307
12755
12531
12760
12758
12648
12757
12805
12196
12420
"755
12532
12643
12764
President Taft
About the President and Patience
Cleveland, Roosevelt, Taft
Notes Made on the Journey with Mr. Taft
One Issue that the President Must Meet
President snd the People
Presidential Programme
Presidents Plan of Action
Tariff Will Not Down „
What Is Popular Enthusiasm Worth?
President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton
Profit-Sharing: My Business Life (X. O. Nelson) 12387
Propping the Open Door
Protest of a Contented Teacher
Punishment for the Dummy Director
Pure Food: Our Debt to Dr. Wiley (Edwin Bjorkman)
"D AISING Money in the Home Town
xx Railroads
After Mr. Harriman
American Builders in Canada (C. M. Keys)
Difference Between Property and Power
♦From Minnesota to the Sea (James J. Hill)
Good Results of Railroad Pensions
Hints of Good Industrial Leadership
How to Make Income Meet Expense
Little Stories ol Business Life
New Chapter m Immigration
Safer Travel By Rail
Real-Estate: A Litde Deal in Real-Estate
Red Flag of Warning
Reminiscences of an American Painter (Elihu Vedder)
♦I. Art Education Fifty Years Ago
♦II. Florentine Years in Retrospect
♦III. New York in War-Time
♦IV. Paris and Rome
Ripley, E. P.: Little Stories of Business Li\e
Robert College: American Colleges in Asia
PAGF
12419
12531
12307
12106
12648
12181
12307
12196
12420
12762
12504
12310
12550
1 2201
12443
12656
12311
12476
12199
12338
12425
12312
12198
12431
12758
1 220 1
12766
12760
12459
12559
12684
12815
12431
12319
12726
12764
12201
12210
12427
Rulers of the Wires (C. M. Keys).
Rural Health by Cooperative Work.
OAFER Travel by Rail
0 St. Louis: Cities at Work
Saving Babies and Killing Men
Schools (See Education)
Sculpture (See Art and Architecture)
Self-Cure With Fresh Cream (Dr. B. J. Kendall)
Sign-Posts on the Road to Ruin
Shaughnessy. Sir Thomas: American Builders in Curada (L\
M. Keys)
Should Doctors Tell the Truth? (" The Patient ")
Small Chance for the Income-Tax
Social Revolution in England 1 2317,
Some Good Books on Polar Exploration
Southern Farmer Coming Into His Own
South — New Emancipation for the South
♦Our Southern Mountaineers (Thomas R. Dawley, Jr.)
Rural Health by Cooperative Work
Spain: How Anarchists Are Made
Speaker or the People ? (William Bayard Hale)
Spreckels, John D. (Men in Action)
Stacking the Cards in the Wall-Street Game
Standard Oil Decision
Starting the Next Generation Right
Steamships— ♦Lost Opportunity on the Pacific (lames J. Hill). .
Stelzle, Charles: An Apostle to Labor (C. M. Meyer)
Stevens, John F. (Men in Action)
Strathcona, Lord (Men in Action)
Swapping Horses for Insurance
Swift ana Final Justice
'TAFT (See President Taft)
x Task for the Conscience of the Future
Teacher: Confessions of a Successful Teacher
Trouble With the Teacher (William McAndrew). 12550,
♦Teaching Morals by Photographs (Walter H. Page)
Telegraph and Telephone
♦Birth of the Telephone (Herbert N. Casson)
How the Public Gels Control
Rulers of the Wires (C. M. Keys)
Telephone As It Is To-day (Herbert N. Casson)
Tenement Reforms: Homes in Waste Places (Bolton Hall)
Story of Two Chicago Families (Men in Action)
Theatre: A Great English Actor
To What Depths in Maryland
Trading in the Holy Spirit (Clifford Howard)
Traffic: Cities at Work
Trouble With the Teacher (William McAndrew) 12550,
True View of Increasing Divorces
TTNITED STATES Bank Again 12312
^ United States Through Foreign Spectacles 1 2430
VAN HORNE, SIR WILLIAM: American Builders in Can-
v ada (C. M. Keys) 12476
Vedder, Elihu (Men in Action) 12290
Mr. Hill's Articles and Others 12209
♦Reminiscences 12459
Victorious Movement, or a Revolt.
12774
12654
12476
"547
12757
12629
12208
12202
12316
12704
12764
1231S
12805
12513
12645
12421
12204
12482
12217
1251/
12514
12543
12760
12762
12221
12552
12715
12660
12200
12726
12775
12398
12625
12207
12197
12846
12210
12552
1 2426
Digitized -by V.
*2Bk3§l&2
INDEX — Continued
AX/AR (Sec Peace and War)
v v Waste Places, Homes in (Bolton HaJl) 1 2308
♦Waterways: The Future of our Waterways (James J. Hill).. 12770
The "Pork Barrel" Continued 12758
West
Consumptive's Holy Grail ("The Patient") i»3S3
•From Minnesota to the Sea (James J. Hill) 12338
Westerner and His Trolley-Line 12322
What a Central Bank Would Do (Robert L. McCabe) 12394
What " Cannonism" Is 12755
What Every Buyer of Irrigation Bonds Should Know 12540
What Is Popular Enthusiasm Worth 12420
What New York's Celebration Showed 12202
♦What We Must Do to Be Fed (Tames J. Hill) 12226
Who Owns the Trusts — the Rich or the Poor/ 12424
PACK
Why England Lows Its Lords 12538
Why Is the Criminal? 12647
Why I Wrote (Sec Literature)
Wiley: Our Debt to Dr. Wiley (Edwin B jdrkman) 12443
Willtams, Clark: Little Stories of Business Life 1243 1
Wilson, WoodroWy of Princeton 12762
Wires, Rulers of (C. M. Keys) 12726
Wonderful Court of Justice 1242c*
Wood, Rev. S. S.: (Men in Action) 1 2400
World's Black Problem (B. L. Putnam Weale) 12327
YOAKUM, B. F.
1 Hints of Good Industrial Leadership 1 23 1 2
(Men in Action) 1 2400
Young, James Carleton: A Libntrv of Autographed Bor.ks (hi r-
bert Randolph Gait) ". 128*8
INDEX TO AUTHORS
Bacheller, Irving 12434
Bjorkman, Edwin 12443
Bjorkman, Frances Maulc 12471
Brooks, Benjamin 1 2555
Carr, John Foster 1 2362
Casson, Herbert N 12669, 12775
Dawley, Thomas R., Jr 12704
Gait, Herbert Randolph 12838
Gulick, Luther Halscy 12438
Hale, William Bayard 12571, 12605, "792, 12805
Hall, Bolton 12398
Henson, Matthew A 12825
Hill, James J 12226, 12338. 12482, 12595, 12730, 12779
Howard, Clifford 12846
Irvine, Alexander 12281, 12365 ,12448, 12586
Keller, Helen . . . j 12765
Kendall, Dr. J*. J 12774
Keys, C. M 12477, 12618. 12726
McAndrew, William 12552
MacBrayne, Lewis E 12813
McCabe, Robert L 1 2394
Mechlin, Leila 1 2370
Meyer, C. M 12217
Nelson, N". () 12387, 1 2504
Nicholson, Meredith 1 2433
One Getting Well 1 2773
Patient, The 12333, 12547
Page, Arthur W 1 2770
Page, Walter H 12662, 12715
Songster, Mrs. M. E i 2544
Scandlin, W. 1 1 2326
Sherman, Harry Tuck 1 25 1 2
SmyserJ Selden 12285
Stralton-Porter, Mrs. Gene 12545
Vedder, Elihu 12459. 12559. 12684. 12815
Van Eeden, Frederik 12588, 1 2658
Weale, B. L. Putnam 12264, 12327
Wrcnshall, Katherine H 12255
INDEX TO PORTRAITS
( *Editoriul Portraits )
Abbas Hilmi, Khedive of Egypt 12274
♦Albert, King of Belgium 12525
Arabinda Ghose 1 2267
♦Baldwin, Captain 12192
Bal Gangad Har Tilak 12267
♦Ballinger-Pinchot Investigation Committee 12628
♦Bannard, Otto T 12182
Bell, Alexander Graham 12676. 12678
♦Benson, A. C 12749
♦Benson, E. F 12749
♦Benson, Father Hugh 1 2749
♦Burnham, Daniel H 1 2740
♦Burroughs, John 12528
Busse, Mayor Fred. A 12801
Butler, Edward B 12799
♦Calhoun, W. J 12522
♦Carty, J. J 12747
♦("hang, Miss Lily 12524
♦Chang Yin Tang 12523
Delano. Frederick A 12799
♦Delivering Speeches in Washington to a Dinner party in New
York 12516
♦Diaz, Porfirio 12292
Dowling. Edward 12376
♦Dugmore, A. Radclyffe 12640
♦Eberhart, Gov. A. 0 12633
♦Emerv, Prof. Henry C 12183
♦Ezekiel, Sir Moses 12188
Ezekiel Sir Moses 12258
Field, Kate 12565
Fisher, Walter L 12800
Fisk, Mrs., Effigy of 12263
♦Forbes- Robertson, Johnstone 12184
Forgan, James B 12799
♦Gilder, Richard Watson 12415
♦Gordon, Hon. James 12746
Gorst, Sir Eldon 12274
♦Graves, Mr. Henrv S 12631
♦Hawley, Edwin 1252 1
♦Hays, Chas. Melville 12409
Henson, M. A 12826
♦Senate High-Price Investigation Committee 12754
•House of Governors 1 2634
♦Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward 12186
Hubbard, Gardiner H 12676
Hutchinson. Chas. L 12790
Irvine, Alexander 12451. 12452. 12453. 12454, 12455. 12456, 12457
♦Ito, Prince 12297
Judson, Harry Pratt 12790
Khedive of Egypt 12274
♦King Albert of Belgium 1 2525
Krishnakumar Mitrn 1 2267
♦Lagerldf, Selma /
Lajpat Rai ,
♦Lincoln, Statue of
♦Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David
♦Loeb, Wm. J., Jr
♦Lurton, Justice H. H
♦Mackay, Clarence H
♦Mackay, Mrs. Clarence H
Maharajah of Burburgah, The
Maharajah of Gravalior, The
Maharajah of Lahore, The
McKibben, Mrs.. Relief of
♦McKim, Chas. F
♦Merriam, Chas. E
Millet, Frances D
Minto, Earl of
Morley, Viscount John
♦Municipal Court of Chicago Judges
♦Muir, John
♦Nelson, N. O
♦Nicholson, Meredith
♦Olson, Chief- Justice Harry
♦Peary, Robert E
♦Pinchot, GirTord
♦Robertson, Prof. J. W
Rajah of Cochin, The
♦Sanborn, Judge W. H
♦Seward, Wm. H
♦Shaughncssy, Sir Thomas
Shaw, Bernard
♦Shibusawa, Baron
♦Stiles, Dr. Chas. W
♦Taft, Wm. H., President 12180,
♦Trudeau, Dr. E. L
•Vail, Theodore N
Vail, Theodore, N 12676,
♦Van Home, Sir William
•Vedder, Elihu
Vedder, Elihu 12458, 12461. 12565. 12566, 12569,
♦von Holzendorff , Admiral
Wacker ,Chas. H
•Washburn, Dr. George
Watson, Thos. A
♦Weeks, Representative John W
White, Mrs. Andrew D., Effigy of
♦Wilev, Dr. Harvev. W
Wilhelm II. Kaiser
♦Wilson, Sir Arthur K., Admiral
♦Wilson, Woodrow
♦Wright, Wilbur
♦Young, James Carleton
12414
12267
12530
1229.1
12 290
12518
12642
12412
12265
12265
12265
12262
I2l85
12743
1237*
12266
1226*)
12637
12S2Q
12304
1 2303
I2636
12412
12510
12748
12265
12413
12187
12408
1 263O
1229X
12295
12292
12744
124 tO
12682
I2407
127 52
1282 I
12526
I2800
12296
I2676
12632
I2263
124II
12573
12527
12745
12193
12750
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INDEX— Continued
vu
INDEX TO MAPS
PU.K
Arya of Action of a Zeppelin Airship • -» s8j
British and German Colonial Possessions i J.S70
I eniral isank ot the United States 1 26 19
t- reign t l>i»tnouiion from St. Louis 12211
k treat .Northern s Lotion koute to Asia 12500
Low the United Males Align 1 nave Carried the \\orio\ Oriental
"1 radc 1 3500
Irrigation Projects 01 ihe United Stales Reclamation Senile. . . . 12616
Land-of-the-\\ oil Country' » -334
Ai ississippi and the Railroads » 2 7&>
Navigable Canals and Rivers of the United Stales 1 ^784
Nearly 120.000 Square Miles that can be Reclaimed by Drainage 12O12
Plan of ('.rant Park > 2707
IVuportion of Improved Farm Land 12247
PACK
Railroad> of the Northwest in 1879 12358
Railroads of the Northwest in 1893 12359
Railroads in the Northwest at Present 12360
Reclaimed Land in Holland 12613
Routes 10 the North Pole 12 195
Wheal Production in 1839 12232
Wheal Production in 1849 12232
Wheat Belt in 1 859 12233
Wheal Prodviction of 1809 12234
Wheat Production in 1879 12235
Wheat Belt of 1889 12236
Wheat Production in 1899 12237
Where the Wheat of the World Is Grown 122^4, 12245
INDEX TO
Bushels of Wheat per Acre > 2253
Cixil Cases Filed and Disposed of in Chicago Municipal Court . . 12700
Comparison of Available Troops of Great Britain and Ger-
many 12580, 1 2581
Comparison of British and German Naval Strength 12582 12583
Criminal Cases Filed and Disposed of in Chicago Municipal
Court 12609
Decrease in Crime in Chicago 127c t
Decrease in Production of Wheat per Acre 12252
DIAGRAMS
Divorce Rate in Countries 12426
Excess of Growth of Home Demand for Wheat over Supply 12251
Gauge of Banking-Power 1362 1
Growth of the Great Northern System 12350
Increase in the Great Northern's Freight Equipment 12357
Mileage of Wire for Telegraph and Telephone in 190J an 1
1907 1 2200
Railroad Problem of Increasing Cost 1 2 199
Taint in a Criminal's Blood 12647
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I Highways of Proffifcf ^j^MES J. HILL
NOVEMBER.
1909
THE
25 CENTS
$3.00 A YEAR.
WORLDS
WORK
WHAT WE, MUST DO TO BE, FE,D
fe*
> > j.
James J* Hill
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE ^COMPANY; NEWYORK
* * * WILLIAM HEINEMANN; LONDON * **
e;i
4- -V 1
III
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MetbV"£2^ Farrar "**■
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Caruso ^KlW&ftSr"-
*(■
ri*J
chumann-Heink |Tetrs*»!!!? *■
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make records only for the Victor.
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but the greatest of all nationalities.
Melba, the greatest English soprano
Tetrazzini, the greatest Italian soprano
Er > the greatest American sopranos
Calve, the greatest French soprano
Gadski, the greatest German soprano
Sembrich, the greatest Polish soprano
Michailowa, the greatest Russian soprano
CarilSO, the greatest Italian tenor
Dalmores, the greatest French tenor
Scotti 1
Battistini [the greatest Italian baritones
Ruffo J
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Renaud, the greatest French baritone
Homer, the greatest American contralto
Schumann-Heink, the greatest German
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These famous artists — universally acknowledged the
greatest, and commanding the highest salaries — make
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The World's Work
WALTER H. PAGE, Editor
CONTENTS FOR NOVEMBER, 1909
THE PRESIDENT'S JOURNEY OF EXPLANATION AND
PROGRAMME-MAKING
THE MARCH OF EVENTS— An Editorial Interpretation -
Frontispiece
- 12181
(With full-page portraits of Mr. Otto T. Bannard, Professor Henry C. Emery, Mr. Johnstone Forbes-Robertson,
the late Charles F. McKim, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Sir Moses Ezekiel, and the statue of William H. Seward;
six pages of scenes of New York during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration; and a Map of the Two Routes to the
North Pole.)
THE PRESIDENTIAL PROGRAMME
THE TARIFF WILL NOT DOWN
THE ONE ISSUE THAT THE PRESIDENT MUST MEET
ABOUT THE DEVIL'S QUOTING LAW
TO WHAT DEPTHS IN MARYLAND?
HOW TO MAKE INCOME MEET EXPENSE
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROPERTY AND POWER
HOW THE PUBLIC GETS CONTROL
PUNISHMENT FOR THE DUMMY DIRECTOR
SAFER TRAVEL BY RAIL
CITIES AT
THE SOUTHERN FARMER COMING INTO HIS OWN
WHAT NEW YORK'S CELEBRATION SHOWED
THE MEN OF FLIGHT
AS OTHERS SEE US
ABOUT A LOT OF LATIN HUMBUG
STARTING THE NEXT GENERATION RIGHT
MR. McKIM'S GREAT CAREER
A GREAT ENGLISH ACTOR
SOME GOOD BOOKS ON POLAR EXPLORATION
MR. HILL'S ARTICLES AND OTHERS
WORK
THE INVESTOR WHO TAKES A CHANCE
LENDING A HUNDRED MILLIONS TO INDIVIDUALS DURING
THE PANIC
AN APOSTLE TO LABOR CM. Meyer
THE CONFESSIONS OF A SUCCESSFUL TEACHER
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS (Illustrated) - - - James J. Hill
I. What We Must Do to be Fed
AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR IN ROME (Illustrated)
Katharine H. Wrenshall
THE CONFLICT OF COLOR (Illustrated) - B. L. Putnam Weale
III. The Brown Man of India and Egypt
FROM THE BOTTOM UP Alexander Irvine
V. First Struggles in America
HOW COOPERATION HAS ENRICHED DENMARK - Selden Smyser
STORIES OF MEN IN ACTION
TERMS: $3.00 a year; single copies, 25 cents. For Foreign Postage add $1.28; Canada, 60 cents.
Published monthly. Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved. Entered at the Post-office at New York, N. Y.,as second-class mail matter.
Country Life in America The Garden Magazine-Farming
ISHH^'guUdh* DOUBLEDAY, PAGE fr COMPANY, 133 I£Y^*r,«
F. N. Doubleday, President §' ^s^quston* \ Vice-Presidcnts H- w- Lanier, Secretary S. A. Everitt, Treasurer
12212
12214
12217
I222I !
12226
12255
12264
I228l
I2285
I2289
uigmzea py
Photograph by Paul Thompson, N. Y.
PRESIDENT TAFT'S JOURNEY OF EXPLANATION AND PROGRAMME-MAKING
SPEAKING AT MILWAUKEE — THE "INSURGENT" SENATOR LA FOLLETTE TO THE PRESIDENT'S LEFT
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" OCT 80 WW ~J 6
//'i'Ai -
WORLdSWORK
NOVEMBER, 1909
Volume XIX
Number 1
Zbe flDarcb of Events
IN his speeches made on his journey to the
people, President Taft has laid out a
sweeping programme for Congress. It is
a programme big enough for his whole adminis-
tration. It includes, among other things,
much more radical railroad regulation, the
strengthening of the law for the conservation
of natural resources, a moderate mail subsidy
for our merchant marine, a commission-govern-
ment of Alaska, and (somewhat vaguely yet) a
reform of the currency.
All these are old subjects, and the most im-
portant of them were among the Roosevelt
policies. There is, therefore, little hew in this
comprehensive programme; but on several of
these subjects Mr. Taft has made more definite
proposals than Mr. Roosevelt had made. And
he has made them with earnestness — with
earnestness but without enthusiasm. At least,
he has not provoked the enthusiasm of the
people.
To be eloquent and stirring — perhaps it
is better that a President should be judicial.
The oratorical mind is likely to consider a
great task done when it has been proposed in
ringing sentences. The criticism, therefore,
that has been common of Mr. Taft's speeches
and of his journey — that he does not arouse
the real enthusiasm of the people — may
not be so bad as it sounds. A friendly cor-
respondent, who accompanies him, has writ-
ten to The World's Work:
"The -trip is quite different from the one that
Mr. Taft made during the campaign. I was
with him then. There was enthusiasm in the
West at that time over the promises he made, most
Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday,
of which led the people to believe that he was
among the Progressives. On this trip all courtesy
is shown to the President, but there is little enthusi-
asm for the man. The general feeling is that the
West cannot look to him as its representative,
that he has put himself in line with Aldrich and
Cannon to insure the carrying of his policies
through Congress. He thought that the tariff
was out of his way, but it isn't."
True, this is the criticism of the moment and
not of a year after. But it does show (and the
newspaper comment along the President's
whole route confirms this conclusion) that
Mr. Taft's speeches have lacked the quality
of the bugle-call. There is no note in them
of popular leadership. It is the judicial
administrator that speaks. His great suc-
cess will lie in working out his programme
rather than in arousing the people by explain-
ing it.
No other President has at the very begin-
ning of his term laid out so orderly and
comprehensive a programme. Mr. Taft has
thought out a consistent series of policies.
They are " progressive " too. They point to
the enlarged regulation of corporations, and
the enlarged activities of the Government;
and the more important of them have already
met the approval of the people. That is one
reason why there is no occasion for demon-
strative enthusiasm.
His real task lies in so using the machinery
of his administration as to carry out these
policies. And it is worth remembering that
he has a smiling persistence. He does not
easily become tired.
Page & Co. All rights reserved.
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Copyright, 1909, by Pach Bros., N. V.
MR. OTTO T. BANNARD, CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR OF NEW YORK, AGAINST TAMMANY
A BUSINESS MAN OF LEGAL TRAINING, A REPUBLICAN, THE PRESIDENT OF A
TRUST COMPANY, WHOSE CAMPAIGN IS WAGED AGAINST TAMMANY'S WASTE
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PROFESSOR HENRY C. EMERY OF YALE UNIVERSITY
xke causa**** or the tariff board appointed sy president taft under the payne-aldeich tariff ACT
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taomgr^pti Dy Lizzie uaswmll Smith. 909 Oxford St.. W., IXMKfaO
MR. JOHNSTONE FORBES-ROBERTSON, THE LONDON ACTOR-MANAGER
wrr doesn't matter what he appears in, he always lots me into a nobler mood**
[Set - Ttu March 1/ Bvemtr," fag* mafl
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THE LATE CHARLES F. McKIM
WB08E DEATH REMOVED THE ACKNOWLEDGED LEADER OF AMERICAN ARCHITECTS
[Set •' Tht March «/ Events," t*?t tmo6\
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MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE, AUTHOR OF "THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC"
WHO, AT THE AGE OF NINETY, CAME TO NEW YORK AND READ
A PATRIOTIC POEM AT THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION
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WILLIAM H. SEWARD, PURCHASER OF ALASKA
THE STATUE RECENTLY UNVEILED AT THE ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION AT SEATTLE
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SIR MOSES EZEKIEL, AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR WHO HAS WON DISTINCTION IN EUROPE
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* ' - Copyright, X909t by Pictorial News Co., N. Y.
THE "HALF MOON" TRYING OUT ITS SAILS IN THE LOW 2r BAY, NEW YORK
Photograph by Enrique Mailer, N. Y.
THE "CLERMONT," THE REPLICA OF FULTON'S FAMOUS SHIP, UNDER ITS OWN POWER
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Photograph by James Huntington, N. Y.
WASHINGTON ARCH BY NIGHT
TBS END OF FIFTH AVENUE DECORATED FOR THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION
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Photograph by Edwin Levick, N. Y.
ILLUMINATED WARSHIPS DISCHARGING FIREWORKS
A PART OF THE TEN-MILE LINE OF WARSHIPS IN THE HUDSON RIVER IN THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION
THE COURT OF HONOR, ON FIFTH AVENUE
Photograph by James Huntington, N. Y.
WHERE GOVERNOR HUGHES AND THE ADMIRALS OF THE AMERICAN AND VISITING
SQUADRONS REVIEWED THE PARADE OF 25,000 SOLDIERS AND BLUEJACKETS
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Photograph by Edwin Levick and Pictorial News Co., N. Y.
AFTER THE PARADE HAD PASSED
DURING A MARCH OF SIX MILES, THE PARADE PASSED MORE THAN A MILLION PEOPLE
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ROUTES TO THE NORTH POLE
AS EXPLAINED BY COMMANDER PEAKY AND DR. COOK, WITH THE DATES MENTIONED IN THEIR PREUMDSARY REPORTS
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1 2 196
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
THE TARIFF WILL HOT DOWN
THE subject that the President may have
hoped was settled for a time has shown
itself to be the most vital of all. As soon as he
declared the PayneTariff Bill to be the best that
the Republican party has ever framed, and
defended it as (in a large way) successful,
the storm burst. The whole Middle West is
" insurgent' ' or Democratic, and the people of
those states feel a decided disappointment at
the President's attitude. They want a real
revision of the tariff — downward; and they
listened in vain for some promise from him of
further effort.
It is plain that the people of these Middle
Western states and the President have not yet
quite understood one another. Mr. Taft
had before this journey expressed his present
satisfaction with the Payne Act; but he had
coupled this expression with some thought
which showed that he regarded party har-
mony of more importance than further reduc-
tions of duties. His hearers in Wisconsin and
Iowa had already threatened or sacrificed
party harmony to an effort to get lower duties.
In a word, Mr. Taft's chief concern seems
to be to keep the party factions together so as
to ensure the passage of much desirable legis-
lation. The insurgent Republicans prefer
further tariff reduction to any or all other
legislation. Yet this is not the whole mean-
ing of this difference. Nor does a divergence
of opinion about the tariff tell the whole story.
The President's downright defense of the
Payne-Aldrich Bill at the home of those who
opposed it raised a deeper fear, and it is this
deeper fear that gave his speeches in the
Middle West such emphasis in the public mind.
THE ONE ISSUE THAT THE PRESIDENT
MUST MEET
THAT deeper fear is frankly expressed in
this comment by the New York Times:
"Confronted by unmistakable and somewhat
alarming evidences of a division in his party,
in which the West is found upon one side and the
East upon the other, he deliberately elects
to ally himself with the East — with the pro-
tected interests, with the great and powerful class
of capitalists who have been so influential in
shaping the policy and legislation of the party,
the men who have caused it to be called the rich
men's party, the men against whom the charge
has been made that they are a combination of
privilege and pelf."
Now this is unjust to Mr. Taft. Most of the
policies that he has outlined are offensive to the
combinations of "privilege and pelf." The
President's highest ambition is to secure equal
and exact justice to every man and to every
interest — judicial infallibility, if such a thing
were possible. He has not deliberately chosen
to favor any section or interest or class of men
over any other section or interest or class.
What he has deliberately chosen is not to do
that very thing.
Still, the greater fear will not down, and his
conduct of the tariff fight and his speeches
about it keep this fear alive — the fear, namely,
that his judicial manner, his hope to please all
factions, his wish to preserve harmony, his
determination that all shall work together for
his larger aims — that this temper and this
method may defeat those larger aims.
Is he with the people or with the exploiters
of the people? He is with the people. Any
other judgment is unjust.
But will he succeed in defending the people
against the exploiters by trying to keep friendly
with both ? This is the doubt that has arisen.
And the President himself must be aware of it.
There has been but one real political issue
since the rise of the great corporation. It takes
different forms with the turn of events. But,
under whatever form, it is the same. It is
whether the Government shall be controlled
by the privileged interests or by the people.
It makes little matter which party ranges itself
on either side. It makes little difference
whether it come to the front as a demand for
tariff revision or for railroad regulation, or for
conservation. At bottom it is the same thought,
the same contention — whether aggregation
of wealth shall enjoy special privileges from
the Government.
Now it may be that the only way to prevent
the growth of privilege is by a sort of violence
in the conduct of government — by the kind
of Executive that spends the whole force of
the office in bringing prosecutions, with noise
and threats, or even by the kind of Executive
that might bring confiscation and temporary
ruin. In a word, this long contest may not
end except after a period of governmental
violence.
It will be far better if we work out plans
of just restraint and fair adjustment by orderly
methods. It is this — precisely this — that
Mr. Taft stands for and hopes for. He must
go fast enough to keep the people's support
Digitized by V3OOQIC
TO WHAT DEPTHS IN MARYLAND?
12197
and he wishes to go slow enough to prevent
party disruption. His party may or may not
have the patience and the character to stand
this strain. But he will make a mistake if he
relies too much on it; for our parties are now
very shifting things. Resolute leadership is a
far stronger force than either one of them.
ABOUT THE DEVIL'S QUOTING LAW
THE controversy about Conservation that
, raged in the newspapers has subsided,
for a time at least. The report that was made
to President Taft about Secretary Ballinger's
conduct in connection with coal and timber
lands in Alaska brought from the President
a letter of confidence in the Secretary, and at
the same time he wrote to Mr. Pinchot an
expression of hearty appreciation of his work,
an appreciation that he expressed again in a
public address on Conservation. The Presi-
dent's declarations on this subject have from
the first been straightforward and frank. He is
committed to the Roosevelt policy, and he has
promised to ask further and more specific
legislation from Congress. As regards irri-
gation, he will ask for a bond-issue of 10 mil-
lion dollars to complete the works now begun,
for which money under the present Act is yet
lacking; for money for all these works must
now come from the sale of public land in the
respective states.
Nobody can find fault with the President's
position and attitude — that he will go the full
length of the law and will try to have the law
go further than now. Still the enemies of the
Conservation movement have got aid and
comfort and renewed hope from the mere fact
that the purpose and temper of Mr. Ballinger
came up for discussion at all. There was
never any wish or suggestion that the Admin-
istration should go beyond the law. But at
this time of day it is unfortunate that any
doubt should have arisen in anybody's mind
about the subject.
The question may not yet be settled by the
President's letters and declarations. That
will depend on what is done and how it is done.
If the present law be so enforced and used as to
show an appreciative zeal for the large policy
— that is one thing and the thing most to be
desired. But, if the law be used always with
emphasis on its insufficiency and the policy
of Conservation is really checked by over-
emphasis on the law's shortcoming, that is
quite another thing. The temper of the
administration of a law is often as important
and as significant as the law itself.
The controversy showed pretty conclusively
that the enlightened opinion of the country is
emphatically favorable to the whole Conserva-
tion movement. The people are in earnest
that our forests shall be preserved, our streams
used wisely, and our water-powers be saved
from monopolies that may become oppressive.
They demand laws to meet present conditions,
most of which, perhaps, must be state laws.
And, if the insufficiency of laws, national or
state, be made an excuse for delay or inaction,
there will be trouble ahead of us.
One result of a morbid fear of going beyond
the law is discouragement in living up to it.
For laws are not prohibitions only. They
are also opportunities.
TO WHAT DEPTHS IN MARYLAND?
IN the November election in Maryland the
Democratic machine has a constitutional
amendment to offer, limiting the right of
suffrage. Aside from those who come under
the "grandfather" clause and the property
qualification, the proposed amendment restricts
the right to vote to
"A person who, in the presence of the officers
of registration shall, in his own handwriting, with
pen and ink, without any aid, suggestion or
memorandum whatsoever, addressed to him by
any of the officers of registration, make application
to register correctly, stating in such application
his name, age, date and place of birth; residence
and occupation at the time and for the two years
next preceding; the name or names of his
employer or employers, if any, at the time and
for the two years next preceding; and whether
he has previously voted, and if so, the state, county,
or city, and district or precinct in which he voted
last. Also the name in full of the President of the
United States, of one of the Justices of the Supreme
Court of the United States, of the Governor of
Maryland, of one of the Judges of the Court of
Appeals of Maryland, and of the Mayor of Balti-
more City, if the applicant resides in Baltimore
City, or of one of the County Commissioners of
the county in which the applicant resides."
In other words, the would-be voter will be
required by this amendment to learn these
thirteen ridiculous questions and the answers
to them, for the officers of registration are
not even to tell the applicant what he is sup-
posed to answer. The result, of course, would
be that practically none of the non-property
owners whose grandfathers were not voters
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
in Maryland could vote, for no considerable
number would learn the necessary rigamarole,
including the middle name of Mayor Mahool,
and other similar nonsense.
It is a pitiful commentary upon the Demo-
cratic leadership in Maryland that it would
stoop to so palpably dishonest a trick to get
rid of the Negro, and it is a sad commentary
on their estimation of the general intelligence
of the people in Maryland that they believe
that such a trick will succeed.
HOW TO MAKE IHGOME MEET EXPENSE
MR. C. C. McCAIN, chairman of the
Trunk -Line Association, an organi-
zation immediately connected with interests
of the great Eastern railroads, has pub-
lished a pamphlet that gives the results of a
long and exhaustive study of the railroad
problem — which is the same problem that
every business and every man has to face —
namely, how to make income meet expense.
He points out that while the average amount
of money received by the average railroad
for carrying a given amount of freight a mile
is 5 per cent, less than it was ten years ago,
the cost of all the supplies that enter into the
railroad business has increased about 25 per
cent. For this reason he argues that the
rates ought to be increased.
From his mass of figures and calculations
a few items have been selected to make the
accompanying diagram. The items are those
that seem most important, and that make up
the bulk of the running expenses of a railroad.
Labor, for instance, takes more than $40
out of every $100 collected by the railroads.
Fuel is the next biggest item.
This diagram presents in a very concrete
form the big problem, not only of the railroad
but also of the household of every man that
owns or rents a home. It is the same problem
that faces the clerk who earned $20 a week
in 1897 and earns no more to-day. The
figures of the economists show that the cost
of his living has increased very nearly 50 per
cent during the interval. If his salary had
kept pace with the cost of living it would now
be about $30.
Mr. McCain adds to his figures the interest-
ing statement that the increased expense of
regulation imposed upon the railroads cost, in
the two years 1906 and 1907, the sum of
$200,000,000; and he quotes a conclusion
reached by Mr. Logan J. McPherson to the
effect that the present net return on $1,000
invested in railroads is only $44 per annum,
against $151 in manufacturing, or $93 in
agriculture.
The argument is based upon the figures
of 1907; and his conclusion is that a state of
affairs has been reached which involves
either an advance in freight rates or the
cutting of wages and a general disorganization
of the railroad business of the country.
These facts are very striking; but the
conclusion is not to be taken too seriously.
It omits the cardinal fact that the enormous
increase in business carried has not only
overcome the decrease in freight rates, but
has enabled half the important railroads of
the country to increase their dividends since
1897, and to pay these increased dividends
on very greatly increased capital, in addition
to putting many millions of dollars into the
upbuilding of their properties directly out
of the money they earn in this very freight
business which Mr. McCain describes in such
discouraging phrases.
The consumers of the country could very
easily stand a slight increase in the freight-
rates in most sections; and even the manu-
facturers of many products would not be
seriously hindered by small increases; but
there are very many people who think that
the responsibility of the railroad managers
to the country at large might well be increased
before the opportunity for swelling their
receipts be given them. The people want
no more Union Pacific "surpluses," with
boundless power for manipulation and for
public exploitation.
And then the obvious reply to the gloomy
remarks of Mr. McCain is that in 1897 the
Union Pacific lay bankrupt, while in 1907
it was a giant among the giant corporations.
Clearly he has stated but a small part of the
facts concerning railroad economy, and his con-
clusion can have little force because it lacks
proper proportion and perspective.
II
Unfortunately the problem of making
income meet expense, after this era of
rising prices, is even more difficult in
the case of individuals and families than
in the case of railroads. With a large
gross income, economies are possible in
many places. With a small gross income —
a small salary, for example — this is not true.
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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROPERTY AND POWER
12199
But is living, for the average man who
(let us say) works for a salary, harder than
it was ten years ago? After the tables of
prices of food and shelter and other necessi-
ties have been studied, it is as hard to answer
this question as it was before. Some neces-
sities have not risen — clothing, for example;
and all the while the people of the United States,
except the very poorest, have increased their
list of necessities by including many things
that used to be regarded as luxuries.
Just how this feat has been performed by the
"average man," it would be hard to say; but
THE RAILROAD PROBLEM OF INCREASING COST
The diagram shows what it cost in 1907 to buy material that cost
Sioo in 1897. For example, the same amount of lumber that cost
$100 in 1807 cost $183 in 1907
it has been performed. There is no doubt
about that
In fact, the incomes of most oapable workers
have increased during the last decade. Then,
too, the facilities for preventing waste and for
encouraging thrift have become better and
more numerous. The savings-banks deposits
have been enormously increased. Building
and loan associations have grown and been
multiplied. Many household economies have
come into practice.
But living — even the simplest method of
living adopted by the average man of a small
income — is a very complex thing. One man
becomes rich on the same gross income that
another suffers on. Personal management is
so large a part of the problem that statistics,
which can never tabulate this, are for that
reason to a great degree misleading. In the
last analysis, every student of such subjects
has to confess that he knows too little to make
very sweeping generalizations.
Three or four things are certain: First, the
problem of making both ends meet is, as it has
always been, a very hard problem for the
average man and the average family; second,
the average American man and family live a
great deal better now than half a century ago;
third, a larger proportion of Americans than
of any other nation live well ; and fourth,
a still larger proportion might live well if we had
developed thrift and good management as
several European peoples have. We are yet
in that period of our national growth when
we openly or unconsciously regard very care-
ful management of one's personal expen-
diture as a somewhat niggardly and belittling
accomplishment
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROPERTY AND POWER
MR. DANIEL S. REMSEN, a recognized
authority on wills and their making,
read a paper at the recent meeting of the
American Bankers' Association in Chicago
in which he demonstrated that a man, rich
or poor, may directly control the disposition
of his real and personal property after his
death — in spite of the many bad wills made
by able men, Mr. Tilden, for example.
Mr. Remsen illustrated his address by
citing instances from the list of famous wills
that have been fought in the courts, and showed
how simple it would have been to avoid the
legal battles, and to make it certain that the
intentions of the dead should be carried out.
What Mr. Remsen has not discovered, and
what no man can discover, is the means
whereby the mind of a masterful man may
be transmitted to posterity. And that is the
railroad problem of to-day. It is the task
to be undertaken by the successors of Mr.
E. H. Harriman.
They met soon after his death in many an
anxious conference. The immediate outcome
of all their deliberations was, of course, all
cut-and-dried beforehand. But the ultimate
result is yet to be worked out.
Judge Lovett, the skilful lawyer, the homely
diplomat admired by friends and enemies,
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
has assumed the administrative tasks of the
formal chairman of the Harriman roads.
Mr. F. D. Underwood, a model president
for such a road as the Erie, has the task of
carrying out the Harriman plans for that
road; but who shall make new plans when
these be ended? The working force of the
Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific is
the same to-day as yesterday, and trains
will run as they ran before. A hundred
experiments in traffic, in transportation, in
tunnel construction in the Sierras, in grade
elimination, will go on. But who will devise
new plans when these are completed?
On the New York Central, the Illinois
Central, the Baltimore and Ohio — or out
in the mountains of Idaho, Oregon, California
— there is a spirit still driving men onward
They cannot work as one man. They cannot
plan as one man. The Harriman kingdom
may not be physically disrupted in our time;
but it is divided already. It took a Frederick
the Great to make the German Empire; and
it has taken men of his type to hold it together.
The stock fails in time; and a new task calls
for another Frederick. And so it will be
in America, where the biggest tasks are com-
mercial, not political. The Wall Street
Journal remarks: "You might as well talk
of a successor to Shakespeare, or Napoleon."
HOW THE PUBLIC GETS CONTROL
A RECENT report issued by the Govern-
ment shows that in the five years
between 1902 and 1907 the amount of wire
used in the telegraph and telephone business
TELEPHONES
COMMERCIAL TELEGRAPHS
RAILROAD TELEGRAPHS
AND TELEPHONES
ELECTRIC FIRE ALARM ANO l90T
POLICE PATROL SYSTEM8 l0OS
DIAGRAM SHOWING THE MILEAGE OF WIRE USED FOR
IN 1902 AND 1907
TELEGRAPHS AND TELEPHONES
to a measured end. Beyond that, no man
may guess what next.
Never, in the history of our great railroads,
has any man left behind him by bequest or
in any other way a heritage of power such as
he himself wielded. Mr. Jay Gould, himself,
trained his chief executor and left the visible
reins of power in his hands. Within a genera-
tion they have slipped away. Commodore
Vanderbilt did the same thing with the same
result. There is not a railroad genius of the
Vanderbilt name in our generation. There
never has been, and there is no promise to-day
that there ever will be, a tnle transmission of
railroad power from father to son.
A dozen strong men take up the reins that
dropped from the hands of Mr. Harriman.
in the United States was doubled. Most
of this increase was in telephone wire, and
it represents the constant demand of the
people for quicker and better means of
communication.
The truth i$ the business of this country
has increased in such volume and with such
rapidity that the facilities for its transaction
have been forced to expand at a rate that is
fairly amazing. The people thought them-
selves pretty well served in 1902 with
telephone systems that had five million miles
of wire, but they taxed their thirteen million
miles in 1907 to a point that has forced a
single company to spend more than a hundred
millions of dollars since then.
The expansion of the telephone is only an
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SAFER TRAVEL BY RAIL
I220I
index to the expansion of other trade and
traffic facilities that has been forced by the
demand of the people. Hardly a month
passes but new passenger and regular freight
trains are put on the Western railroad lines on
account of pressure brought by business
organizations. The boards of trade and
commercial clubs have learned that when all
the trade bodies along a railroad get together
and make demands of the traffic men in their
region, additional trains are put on. If they
are really needed, they are continued. If there
be doubt whether the traffic really justifies
them, there are commerce commissions, public
service commissions, and especially railroad
commissions always ready to listen to the
public's arguments and to. adjust differences.
The men who are providing commercial
facilities for to-day have a task that the pioneers
in the railroad, telegraph, steamship, and
postal systems never dreamed of. And the
old-time autocrat of the operating department
of the railroad, of the executive committee
of the telegraph company, and of the coun-
sels of the telephone corporation has passed.
The people have learned that the corporation
is their creature, and that it has life only for
one object — namely, the public service. It has
taken some of these corporations a generation
to learn the same thing — but it will never
be forgotten.
The manufacturing corporation yet claims
exemption from public "interference." Only
two years ago, some of the biggest of them
refused even to make public reports of their
finances and operation, to say nothing of the
cost of manufacture. In time, no doubt,
the people will demand that knowledge, too.
The farmer who buys a harvester will wish
to know how much it cost to make that har-
vester, and how much better harvester he
ought to get for the same money.
Adjustments of this sort take much time;
but they are just as sure to come as in the
case of the railroads and the telephones. The
buyer is the master; and he is certain to find
ways to use his mastery sooner or later.
PUNISHMENT FOR THE DUMMY DIRECTOR
SEVEN years ago, the Trust Company of
the Republic, in New York, collapsed
as a result of unwise loans made by its presi-
dent. In time a stockholder brought suit
against the directors to recover losses, on the
ground that they had not exercised proper
discretion and supervision in the administration
of the estate. The defense amounted to a
statement that the directors had merely
followed a common habit — that of leaving
the active work to the officers — and were
not responsible for losses incurred as a result.
A New York court has now handed down
a decision in which it holds the directors
responsible. The amount of money involved
is about $350,000, and it is said that judgments
for this amount are obtainable against the
thirteen directors.
So end the happy days of the dummy
director. For many years it has been con-
sidered that a directorship in a money-
corporation is a sort of honorary task, with
some glory, a little prestige, a few emoluments,
and no work or responsibility. The idea that a
director is responsible as a trustee for the stock-
holders had been forgotten in modern methods.
In a St. Louis case the judge went so far as to
declare that the principle is good law as well
as good morals; but it remained for the New
York court to bring it to a practical application
in the case of men of power and wealth.
The lesson is not so badly needed to-day
as it was when the suit first came to trial.
The intervening years have carried their own
grim lessons, particularly to the banking
world of New York City. But the decision
is none the less welcome to those who have
fought the long and unpopular battle for
greater responsibility in the administration
of other people's money.
The decision is in a banking case; but the
moral truth at least applies with equal force
to the administration of every corporation
that has stockholders outside the management.
The stockholder, in effect, is a silent partner,
and the director is his trustee. Errors of
judgment are sure to occur; but, when the
loss or wrecking of a company is due to care-
lessness, blindness, or neglect on the part of
the directors, the stockholders have a right
to demand reparation from those directors.
And this case means that they may recover it.
SAFER TRAVEL BY RAIL
THE best safety records made public
by the big American railroads are
now coming to light month by month. The
Pennsylvania Railroad set the example by
announcing that not a single passenger had
been killed on its rails in the twelve months
that ended last December. Now follow others.
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
The Erie Railroad, probably the most
decried of all the big trunk-lines, claims the
unique record of having carried more than
125,000,000 passengers in the last five years
without killing a single person in a preventable
accident. The Lehigh Valley makes a similar
report.
Four Western railroads — the Burlington,
the Rock Island, the Atchison, and the North-
western— claim that in the past year they
killed not a passenger in any accident charge-
able to the railroad. This is a matter of the
greatest importance; for the Western roads,
with their lighter tracks, new construction,
rougher methods, and more rapid growth
have long had an unenviable record. The
new announcements from this half of the
country are especially significant.
And there is a new spirit in the railroad
world. In the passenger departments of our
railroads a deep impression was made a year
or so ago by the announcement from England
that all the railroads of that island had been
operated for twelve months without killing
a single passenger. The Pennsylvania took
pride in its record of last year in equalling the
English record; and there is no doubt that
the other railroads are engaged in a contest
of this excellent sort.
We have seen in this country for years
a mad struggle for supremacy in speed, in
luxury, in comfort, and in the excellence of the
menu in the dining car. Now these struggles
give place to a contest for supremacy in safety
— which the public gladly welcomes.
THE SOUTHERN FARMER COMING INTO HIS OWW
FROM so undemonstrative a source as the
Department of Agriculture's Monthly
Crop Reporter comes the news of a real
economic revolution. While the country has
talked of Western farms and Southern fac-
tories, the Southern farmer has emerged from
the debt-littered past and joined the ranks of
progress.
Between 1899 and 1908 the Southern farmer
more than doubled the cash income from his
staple crops. In 1899 the twelve Southern
States grew 706 million dollars' worth of
agricultural products, and in 1908, 1,429 mil-
lion dollars' worth, an increase of 102$ per cent.
The percentage of increase in the other thirty-
six states was 64.5. Of the twenty-six states
leading in the value of their agricultural prod-
ucts last year, eleven were Southern and
fifteen Northern and Western. Texas was first,
where Iowa used to be.
Mr. Clarence H. Poe, the Editor of the
Progressive Farmer, of Raleigh, N. C, recently
sent out inquiries to all sections of North Caro-
lina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee,
asking the percentage of improvement in farm-
ing implements and machinery, not for nine
years, but for the last five years. The average
replies showed an increase of 78.7 per cent.
Similar inquiries sent to all parts of Mississippi,
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama brought
replies indicating an increase of 92 per cent
in five years.
This is a notable record of progress and
achievement, but the most notable thing
about it is the belief and determination of
the Southern farmers, as expressed by Mr.
Poe, that this is only the "beginning of the
great agricultural revolution — a revolution in
which improved farm methods and improved
farm machinery are almost equally important
factors."
WHAT NEW YORK'S CELEBRATION SHOWED
BY the time this is published the great
Hudson-Fulton Celebration, at New
York and at smaller cities along the Hudson
River, will have been pushed out of the public
mind. But nobody who saw any important
part of it is likely soon to forget it, for it
proved that a great series of spectacles, with-
out any directly commercial exhibitions, can
be made to appeal to the imagination of mil-
lions of persons.
The rebuilding of Hudson's Half Moon and
of Fulton's Clermont, and the appearance on
them of persons in the dress of the period of
each; the dazzling effects on land and on water
of artistic designs and devices in electric light;
the amazing achievements in decorative illum-
ination by electricity; the aptness that we
are showing in the representation of pageantry
of historical events; the comprehensiveness of
collections of all kinds, from great paintings
to historical curiosities; most of all, our return-
ing love of color and form — these things show
a capacity for enjoyment and a certain merri-
ness of temperament that have not always
been characteristic of American life.
We wore black clothes and lived in square,
white houses and frowned on dancing and
most other graceful and gleeful things; we had
little music; and we thought little of form —
for a long time in our national life. But we are
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THE MEN OF FLIGHT
12203
passing that somewhat gloomy era, without
loss, too, to sturdiness of character and surely
with great gain to the adornment of life.
THE MEN OF FLIGHT
MR. ORVILLE WRIGHT has recently
made two records by carrying a pas-
senger for an hour and thirty-five minutes,
and by rising tp a height of 1,600 feet. From
Berlin, M. Hubert Latham made a cross-
country flight to Johannisthal, eleven and a
quarter miles away. It took him twenty-four
minutes, which is considerably better time
than can be made by the present method of
commuting in this country. Mr. Glenn H.
Curtiss was the most successful contestant at
Brescia, Italy, as he had been previously at
Rheims; but, though present at Governor's
Island, he made no extended flights. In
England, the only aeroplanist that attracted
attention was an American, Mr. F. S. Cody,
who carried on his experiments with some
encouragement from the British War Office.
Finally, after many failures and the refusal of
Mr. Haldane to have the arrangement with the
Government renewed, Mr. Cody suddenly
made a thousand-yard flight, followed this
with longer flights, and finally went forty-
seven miles across country in sixty-three
minutes.
But while the well-known men of flight
are improving their machines, their records,
and knowledge of aviation, newcomers are
entering the field from all parts of the country.
At Mineola, on Long Island, where Mr. Cur-
tiss made his flights before going to Rheims,
Miss Lillian Todd has set up an aeroplane of
her own design. In the Piedmont Hills, near
San Francisco, Mr. Fung Joe Guey, a Chinese,
has built an aeroplane on which he has made
two successful trips. He intends to take it
with him to China, there to astonish his
countrymen by flight. In San Antonio, Texas,
Mr. Adolph Huff, Jr., has an aeroplane in
which he has remained off the ground for fifty-
seven minutes.
But no one has done a more dramatic or
more skilful thing than Mr. Wilbur Wright did
in his flights during the Hudson-Fulton cele-
bration. On Wednesday, September 29th, as
the record-breaking Lusitania was leaving
New York harbor, Mr. Wilbur Wright left
Governor's Island and flew over the great
ship at a speed greater than the ocean grey-
hound has ever attained; as he circled the
Goddess of Liberty and came back to the Island,
every whistle in the great harbor shrieked
appreciation of the feat. Five days later,
however, he far outdid it. Starting from the
Island in the harbor, again he went up the
Hudson River to Grant's Tomb and back,
a longer trip than Bteriot's across the channel.
This is probably the most trying journey ever
made by an aeronaut, for the gusts from
the canon-like streets between New York's
skyscrapers, the hot air from the warship
funnels, and the disturbances made by the
ferry-boats and other river craft kept the
atmosphere in a dangerous turmoil. Yet the
flight was made without accident, and Mr.
Wright landed easily a few yards from his
starting-point, thirty-three minutes and thirty
three seconds after he left.
His brother in Berlin held, meanwhile, the
attention of all Germany in spite of the mad
enthusiasm of the Germans for Count Zeppelin.
The dirigible balloons have not been so uni-
formly successful. The Gross II served use-
fully in the German army manoeuvres. An
Italian military airship made a successful trip
over land and water from Bracciano. It is still
announced that there will be an airship line in
Germany in 19 10. Yet even in Germany
Count Zeppelin finds in the Wrights' aeroplane
a rival in popular favor. In this country, on
the same day that Mr. Wright circled the
Statue of Liberty, the veteran balloonist,
Captain Baldwin, was unfortunate enough to
fall into the water. In France, the explosion
of La Republique, which killed the navigator
and crew, has made General Brun, the Minister
of War, say that:
"The dirigible balloon can never be so far
perfected, as to be a military engine of the first
order. I am devoting the closest attention to the
acquirement of suitable aeroplanes for the army,
and we will begin soon to train our soldiers in
their use. I expect in the next six months to
show important results in that direction.''
The United States army also has added the
aeroplane to its equipment. When Mr. Wilbur .
Wright left New York after the flight to
Grant's Tomb, he went to Washington to in-
struct army officers in the art of flying, for the
War Department seems to rely upon its future
usefulness more than the Navy Department
Commander Sims, the distinguished gunnery
expert,after watching Mr. Wright from the deck
of the Minnesota, said that at the height the
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
H
aviator was flying the ships could probably
get the range and destroy the aeroplane; and
if he should rise to a greater altitude and go
at the same speed, his chance of dropping ex-
plosives on a warship would be small.
But it is important to remember that the
aeroplane is yet in the first stages of its develop-
ment Even now, in the event of a naval war,
it would, give the admiral of a fleet an uneasy
feeling — to say the least — if he should see a sus-
picious airship hovering over his flagship. With
another year's improvements, the aeroplane
may become a recognized agent of destruction.
ABOUT A LOT OF LATIN HUMBUG
ERE is a letter from a truthful man that
tells an interesting experience:
"My doctor one day prescribed a nasal wash
for me. The prescription was an abbreviation
of two Latin words, and it was unintelligible to the
layman. I took it to a druggist, and he filled a
little bottle from a big bottle on his shelf, and he
charged me sixty cents. The little bottle held
about one-fourth as much as the big bottle.
"I asked him if I might see the big bottle. It
bore a label which told its contents and the name
of the chemists that prepared it.
"'What is the price of this big bottle?' I asked.
"'One dollar.'
"I bought the big bottle for one dollar instead
of having the little bottle filled from it four times
at a cost of $2.40. The next time I saw the doctor
I told him what I had done.
"'You were very right,' he said. 'Did I pre-
scribe the thing in this way? It was the force of
habit.'
"'Don't you think that an intelligent layman
might be trusted with some knowledge of what
goes up his nose or down his throat?'
"'The whole system,' he replied, 'is foolish
and out-of-date — of course, of course.'"
The nomenclature of the pharmacopoeia, as
of botany and of much of the law, is out-of-date.
The result is — in the case of botany — that
knowledge of it is immensely more difficult
to disseminate; and, in the law and particularly
in medicine, a vast amount of ignorance is
perpetuated, quackery is encouraged, and a
lot of humbug kept going — a vast lot of it.
At some time in the future (let us say, to be
safe, a thousand years hence) the names of
drugs, of legal processes, and of plants will be
English names in English-speaking lands —
names that anybody can understand. The
change from Latin must be made at some
time: why should not the medical societies
set about it now? If plain English were used
in all medical dealing with the public, an incal-
culable lot of nonsense and "mystery" would
go where they belong; and one result would be
a very considerable increase in popular knowl-
edge and a great decrease of the whole drug-
habit.
The conclusion of the foregoing letter is this:
"I now ask my doctor to translate his pre-
scriptions, to explain what the stuff is that I must
use or swallow, and precisely what effect he
expects it to have. I am perfectly willing to take
even bread pills, but I prefer to take them in
English. In my case, at least, I think that the
same psychological result would be got if the
doctor should say: 'What you need is a bread pill
every night. Therefore, go on and forget your ail-
ment and it will forget you. ' "
STARTING THE NEXT GENERATION RIGHT
THE great health movement now sweeping
over the country from coast to coast is
turning more and more toward the children*
A movement has been started to study New
York's child-life along the line of the survey
recently made of conditions in Pittsburgh.
The organization of the work is already well
under way, with an office established in the
Metropolitan Life Building. First of all,
the data now hidden away in the records of city
departments and semi-public institutions will
be collected, correlated, and presented in clear
form. At the same time new data will be
gathered by a field force of specially qualified
workers sent out by the general committee
that has the direction of the work in charge.
The results obtained will, as far as possible,
be placed before the public in the shape of
pictures, maps, tables, and diagrams — that
is, in a manner that makes it possible for
anybody to grasp the lesson thus conveyed.
For the purpose of giving the public access to
all such material, an exhibition will be arranged
during the spring of next year, probably at the
Madison Square Garden.
n
Noteworthy, too, is the recent action of
the city of Hartford, Conn., in establishing
a Juvenile Commission, with power to deal
with the various problems relating to the life
of the children. The commission includes
six appointed citizens holding no other offices.
They will work in conjunction with the mayor,
the superintendent of schools, one of the police-
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AS OTHERS SEE US
12205
court judges, and representatives delegated for
the purpose by the park board, the charity com-
mission, and the health commission.
"A city department devoted exclusively to the
welfare of the children, and planned to make the
city a paradise for the little folks, is the measure
taken in order that Hartford's 40,000 children may
grow up into healthy, intelligent voters and wives
of voters" — is the announcement of a local paper.
" Under this plan the entire city government, it is
believed, can be made to work as a unit to gain for
all those embryo citizens the things which are essen-
tial to their well-being, as well as the things which
shall bring the home and the state into closer
cooperation through the point of common interest
in the children."
What all this seems to mean is that we have
discovered the disadvantages of being started
wrong in life, without proper knowledge of how
to live. And having found out what it means,
we are determined that our sons and daughters
shall profit by our own experiences — that
they shall start with the healthy habits and the
knowledge of right living which we lacked.
AS OTHERS SEE US
A DISTINGUISHED Hungarian, Mon-
signor Count Vay de Vaya and Luskod,
Apostolic Protonotary, PD.HH., KC.IC,
who has made several visits to the United
States, and is well-disposed toward us, has
written a book on "The Inner Life of the
United States." Some of his observations
will astonish the natives — for examples:
"Young children of five or six years of age
travel alone, without any companion — they buy
their tickets, look after their luggage them-
selves, and during the journey the curious
stranger may observe them repeating their lessons
for the day."
"The American takes up the struggle of life
almost in the cradle. When he reaches his
thirteenth year he is in many ways independent,
goes to business, and often at the age of thirty
retires as a rich man."
"By the end of the day the rich man may be a
beggar, while the poor man in a few hours turns
into a millionaire."
"The American, from childhood onward, spends
half his life in traveling."
"We can hardly run our eye down the adver-
tisement columns of any important newspapers
without being surprised by the number of invita-
tions to take part in strange meetings. These
notices often give an approximate idea of what
may he expected to happen, and a list of the
apparitions or miraculous occurrences which it is
hoped may take place."
If these observations are a little surprising,
his facts are not less so. Thus, he tells us
that "Whitney invented a machine for the
cleansing and combing of wool." And he
mentions the fact that when "Vanderbilt, in
the year 1869, introduced a carefully planned
railway system," he "constructed his line
from the banks of the Hudson to New York
Central." Sometimes, of course, the facts
were not easy for a foreigner to grasp, as
where he says that "those original melodies
called 'Coon Songs' generally originate in
villages that are, comparatively speaking, of
early date."
After the Dred Scott incident, he tells us,
"The old position as regards slavery was
proved to be untenable. Those regarded
heretofore as unreasoning animals or, at the
best, as chattels, demanded ever-louder recog-
nition by the law. At last Jefferson came
forth openly in their behalf, and was the first
to call these wretched people brothers, to the
astonishment of the world." The following
"line-up" of names will surprise the student
of American literature: "Willis, Whitman,
and still more Taylor, rank with the best
American poets, and although they did not
possess talents of the first order, they are inter-
esting figures in the literature of the New
World." He speaks of " universities intended
solely for girls, such as Wellesley, Smith's,
Vassar, and Trinity."
His mistakes in proper names are almost
incredible. "Lennox" and "Tuskagee" for
Lenox and Tuskegee; "Washington Alliston,"
"Cecelia Beau," "Wilson Seale," for Allston,
Cecelia Beaux, and Willson Peale; " Joebeng"
for Roebling, the constructor of the Brooklyn
bridge; "Lafler Alcott" and "Wilmont
Griswold" for Bronson Alcott and Wilmot Gris-
wold; "Tessler" for Tesla; "St. Elizabeth" for
Elizabeth (New Jersey); "Inney" and "Van-
derlyn," for Innes and Vanderlin. By a too
plentiful use of commas, he makes four men
out of Jones Very and C. P. Cranch, thus:
"Jones, Very, Christopher Pearse, Cranch,"
etc.
All which shows how easy it is to write
absurdly about a foreign country. Since
Americans write more books about other
nations than the people of other nations
write about us, there may be many Count
Vay de Vayas among us.
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
MR. McKIM'S GREAT CAREER
THE architect far more than his fellow-
artists reaches the intimate daily life
of the multitude. We go to picture galleries
occasionally, and see a sculpture exhibition
once in a while — but the architect's works
cry aloud in the streets to every passer-by every
hour of every day. It is his in the highest
degree to clothe with beauty one of man's
fundamental necessities.
This truism takes on new significance when
one tries to sum up the meaning to his time
and fellows of such a man as the late Mr.
Charles F. McKim, whose death removed
the acknowledged leader of his profession in
America. From this large human point of
view it would be difficult to exaggerate the
importance of the work that he did dur-
ing the thirty-two years of his tremendous
activity.
He began his professional career at a time
which some future historian of art may perhaps
label as the Opening of the American Renais-
sance — the first years of that wonderful last
quarter of the nineteenth century which
saw the rise of our country to a "World
Power," in Art as in Finance, in Industry as
in Politics. History shows few, if any, such
vast growths in wealth and power and material
possessions as that of the United States, know-
ing itself for the first time a real nation through
the cementing force of the Civil War, and awak-
ing like a young giant to a sense of the gold and
oil beneath the earth, the lumber and crops
upon its surface, the new railroads revolution-
izing commerce, the new millions of men and
women pouring in to develop these inexhaust-
ible resources.
Such a period of expansion, of wealth, of new
ideas, is the artist's greatest opportunity, if
he be artist enough and man enough to use
these weapons which trade forges for him.
It is the greatest possible tribute to Mr. McKim
to say that he so adapted himself to these
conditions that he was able to direct huge ex-
penditures of money to worthy artistic aims,
with the result that ignorant and careless spend-
ers themselves acquired a new point of view,
and saw that beauty in building was worth
while, even as a commercial asset, and admitted
the dignity and importance of the architect's
calling.
Mr. McKim returned to America after
his course at the Beaux Arts to find among
his brother-architects a strong leaning toward
the romantic "Gothic revival"; and he made
a few experiments himself along these lines.
But, consciously or unconsciously, forces then
active led him to a more accepted and authori-
tative style, and the characteristic mark of his
firm's work became a most skilful adaptation
to American needs of the best work of the
Italian Renaissance. The character of the
man is shown almost as much by his skilful
building and handling of his own famous firm
as by the personal taste and restraint and en-
thusiasm which went into his professional work.
He associated with himself two very diverse,
positive, creative personalities and gradually
gathered together a changing group of ambi-
tious younger assistants; and for thirty- two
years the same knowledge and diplomacy
and force which enabled him to direct a client's
mind went to organizing this group into a
tremendous force, an artistic machine which
might serve as a model for a " captain of indus-
try." Those who knew the men could often
pick out this or that achievement as an expres-
sion of an individual, but the work done was
by "McKim, Mead, and White."
And what a record it is! State houses, pub-
lic libraries, art galleries, churches, clubs,
banks, universities — a full half-hundred, some
of which are in every great city of the United
States — are numbered merely among the
"principal works." Moreover, there is hardly
one of them which has not been an inspiration
to public taste and to fellow-artists. In the
aggregate they form a body of work of such
high character as to amaze the layman and
student alike. Just because . there is such
widespread public ignorance regarding the
builders of such structures, we set down here
a list of some of the more notable:
List of the Principal Works of McKim, Mead
and White
Rhode Island State House.
Boston Public Library.
Madison Square Garden, New York.
Agricultural Building, Columbian Exposition,
Chicago.
Library, Columbia University, New York.
General Plan of Columbia University grounds
and buildings, New York.
New York University Library, and Hall of Fame,
New York.
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.
Walker Art Gallery, Bowdoin College, Maine.
Building for Architectural Department, Harvard
University.
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A GREAT ENGLISH ACTOR
12207
University Club, Harvard Club, Century Club,
Metropolitan Club, Harmonic Club, Freunds-
chaft Club, Colony Club — all in New York.
Algonquin Club, Boston.
Interior of The White House.
St. Peter's Church, Morristown, N. J.
Prison-ship Martyrs' Monument, Brooklyn.
Library for J. Pierpont Morgan, New York.
Pennsylvania Station, New York.
Extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.
Washington Arch, Washington Square, New York.
Dwelling for Henry Villard, New York.
New York Life Insurance Company's building,
Kansas City. New York Life Insurance Com-
pany's building, Omaha.
Judson Memorial Church, Washington Square,
New York.
Gennantown (Pa.) Cricket Club.
New York Herald Building.
Bowery Savings Bank, New York.
Symphony Hall, Boston.
University of Virginia: Restoration of the Rotunda,
Academic Building, Physics Building, Mechanics
Building.
New Porch and Memorial Doors, St. Bartholomew
Church, New York.
Bank of Montreal.
Knickerbocker Trust Company Building, New
York.
Gorham Manufacturing Company, New York.
Tiffany & Company, New York.
Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New York.
The Army War College and Engineering School,
Washington, D. C.
Bellevue Hospital, New York.
National City Bank, New York.
It is as true that the architect is, generally,
unknown to the public as that his work is in
closest relation to them. Charles F. McKim's
name may never be a "household word,"
but his work and influence will live as long
as men love beautiful buildings; and the man
who saw in his mind's eye and embodied the
Boston Public Library has a sure place in the
memories of his countrymen.
A GREAT ENGLISH ACTOR
IT doesn't matter what he appears in, he
always lifts me into a nobler mood. I
know of no one on the stage who so perfectly
combines high and fascinating personality
with sincere and exquisitely sensitive and
delicate art" So writes an English novelist
about Johnstone Forbes-Robertson, the Lon-
don actor, who is now in this country.
It may be, or may not be, that Mr. Forbes-
Robertson is the greatest English actor, now
that Irving is gone. That he is the greatest
Hamlet now living will probably be generally
conceded — except by other actors who them-
selves play the rdle of the Prince of Denmark.
He has also been a manager for fourteen years,
and his influence in theatrical affairs has
been strongly constructive and refining. He
is a man of ideals, and he always rings true —
as a manager not less than as actor.
This was shown in his production and
in his acting of the dramatization of Mr.
Kipling's "The Light That Failed." A war
correspondent of the London Times who had
served in the Egyptian campaigns was engaged
to supervise the painting of the scenery for the
great Soudan scene that opens the play. The
blankets, the camel-boxes, and all the other
" properties' ' of the scene had been used in
the Soudan fights. Of course, not one in a
thousand of those that saw the play cared
about this — but Forbes-Robertson cared.
Again, in the studio scene, there was another
piece of realism — when Dick Heldar (the
artist) showed Maisie (the student) how to
paint. There was no "acting" in his hand-
ling of brush and palette — for the actor is
himself an artist. In the Players' Club, New
York, is a painting by Forbes-Robertson that
was used in Sir Henry Irving's production of
" Much Ado About Nothing."
There was also realism in the actor's por-
trayal of the pathos that marked the moment
when the light failed, and in the movements of
the blind hero afterward. During one of his
performances in London an elegantly dressed
lady was so carried away by the vividness of it
that she arose in her seat, saying: "I can't
bear it! I can't bear it!" — and her husband
slapped her on the back to recall her from
her flight of imagination. Though the audi-
ence did not know it, the actor's father (a
literary and dramatic critic in Aberdeen) was
blind during the last ten years of his life.
When he played "Hamlet" in New York
City, his fellow-craftsmen playing in the
city paid him a rather unusual tribute; the
companies from eight theatres united in a
" Round Robin," asking him to play it on an
afternoon when there were no matinfes, in
order that they might attend.
In the play which he has brought to
America this year — "The Passing of the
Third Floor Back," by Jerome K. Jerome —
Mr. Forbes-Robertson plays a character so
suspiciously like the Christ that the English
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
censor came near stopping the performance.
However, the Bishop of London liked it so well
that he preached a sermon on it — and the play
went on. And yet, it is not a religious play.
. Off the stage, as well as on, Mr. Forbes-
Robertson is the same high-minded, half-
tragic, scholarly man. All the moods are
reflected in his striking face as he talks, but his
features invariably compose into an expres-
sion that is half melancholy and half retrospect-
ive. But there is no pose about it Hamlet
was merely the natural Forbes-Robertson
speaking the words of Shakespeare. He does
not try to be Hamlet in real life — he cannot
help it.
SOME GOOD BOOKS OH POLAR EXPLORATION
HANDBOOK of Polar Discoveries," by
A.W. Greely. Third Edition. (Little,
Brown and Company, Boston, 1906, $1.50.)
This is an excellent resume of more than
70,000 pages of original narrative of Polar
exploration. The first eighteen chapters are
devoted to the Arctic regions and the last five
to the Antarctic. It contains an excellent
Arctic bibliography.
"Farthest North," by Fridtjof Nansen.
(Harper Brothers, New York, 1897, two vol-
umes, $10.00; popular edition; one volume,
$4.00.) This is a record of a voyage of
exploration of the Fram, 1893-1896, and of
a fifteen-months' sleigh expedition by Dr.
Nansen and Lieutenant Johansen. As an
appendix, the work has the report of Captain
Otto Sverdrup on the drifting of the Fram from
March 14, 1895.
"The Romance of Polar Exploration," by
G. Firth Scott. (J. B. Lippincott Company,
Philadelphia, 1906, $1.50.) A readable
account of Arctic exploration from the time of
Sir John Franklin till the expedition under the
command of the Duke of Abruzzi sailed in 1889.
Pages 283-351 are devoted to the Antarctic
regions.
"Nearest the Pole," by Robert E. Peary.
(Doubleday, Page and Company, New York,
1907, $4.80.) This is a narrative of the
expedition of the Peary Arctic Club in the
Roosevelt in 1905-1906. The expedition was
under the command of Peary, who reached
the latitude of 870 6', "the farthest north"
then reached by man.
"Three Years of Arctic Service," by A. W.
Greely. (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York,
1886, two volumes, $5.00.) These volumes
give an account of the expedition of 1881-1884
under the command of Lieutenant Greely.
The expedition was made national by Act of
Congress and Lieutenant Greely was directed
" to establish a station north of the eighty-first
degree north latitude, at or near Lady
Franklin Bay, for the purpose of scientific
observation."
"The Voyage of the Jeannette" — The
Ship and Ice- Journals of George W. De Long.
Edited by his wife, Emma De Long. (Hough-
ton, Mifflin and Company, Boston, 1883, two
volumes, $4.50.) An interesting account of
the expedition of 1879-1881, in which Com-
mander De Long lost his life.
"New Land," by Otto Sverdrup. Trans-
lated from the Norwegian by Ethel Harriet
Hearn. (Longmans, Green, and Company,
New York, 1904, two volumes, $10.50.)
An account of four years spent in the Arctic
regions by Sverdrup, and the discovery in 1900
of two large islands. The islands lie seven
hundred miles north of the region where the
companions of Franklin died of starvation,
and are remarkable for their abundance
of animal life.
An excellent statement of the scope and
value of Arctic exploration is given in the
article "Polar Regions," by Clement R.
Markham, in the Encyclopedia Britannica,
volume 19, pages 315-330. This is an ex-
cellent resume of what was accomplished
down to 1883. See also the article on "Polar
Research" in the New International En-
cyclopedia, volume 14, pages 283-289.
"Fighting the Polar Ice," by Anthony Fiala.
(Doubleday, Page & Company, New York,
$3.80 net.) A record of two years spent
above the 81 st Parallel. The remarkable
photographs, as well as the vivid text, gives
a real conception . of what polar exploration
means, and what the conditions are which an
explorer must overcome.
" The People of the Frozen North," by Knud
Rasmussen. (J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia,
1908, $5.00.) An interesting and authoritative
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book on the Esquimaux and the Arctic Circle,
with numerous illustrations and a map.
"The Antarctic Voyage of Lieutenant Shack-
dton." (J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1909,
two volumes, $10.00.) This is the record of
the commander of the expedition that went
farthest south — to within one hundred and
eleven miles of the South Pole. Illustrated in
colors and with photographs.
"The White World." (The Arctic Club
of America, New York, $2.00.) This is an
interesting compilation of the narratives of
twenty-one members of this club, among whom
are A. W. Greely, Frederick A. Cook, and
Captain Osbon.
MR. HILL'S ARTICLES, AKD OTHERS
THE universal interest in Mr. James J.
Hill's recent speech before the American
Bankers' Association, about the insufficient
food supply which our increasing population
will soon face, admirably prepared the way
for the full statement of his warning which
appears in this number of The World's Work.
There is no more important subject within the
range of American concern. And surely it
could not be made plainer than Mr. Hill
makes it, nor the way out of the approaching
difficulty made clearer.
The Government has taken up the subject,
for Secretary Wilson has "set a number of
Government scientists to work to discover
the causes of such a condition." Until they
report, he has refused to say anything more
than this — that there is a great deal of truth
in Mr. Hill's forecast
The outlook is of quite as much concern to
Europe as to the United States, and the Eng-
lish journals have discussed it with fulness.
Long before we lack food ourselves, we shall
have ceased to send food to Europe. The
London Times recently said:
"We in Europe, with our Old World notions
ot what constitutes a populated land, never
dreamed that we soon might have to look
to other sources" (than America) "for our
wheat supply . . . while Americans, with
the careless optimism of a young nation dowered
with one of the largest and richest territories on
earth, still regarded not only their wheat supply
but all their natural resources, as a kind of For-
tunatus purse. Farm, timber, and even pasture
lands, deposits of coal and iron, all that makes
a country rich, were being exploited with the utmost
profligacy, and the prosperity of generations
unborn was being mortgaged to the selfish needs
of the present"
Mr. Hill's large survey not only shows
the impending danger, but, like the man, the
article is constructive. It points the way to
the prevention of such a disaster.
In subsequent numbers Mr. Hill will
write with the same fulness about the devel-
opment of the Northwest; about Trade with
Asia, in which he sketches world-wide com-
merce; about Railroad and Industrial Com-
binations and their Control; and about the
Irrigation and Drainage Problems of the
Nation.
II
Sometimes, even in our unwearying Ameri-
can life, we get tired of proving proposi-
tions and of cramming our minds with in-
formation and of pushing great enterprises
forward; and then the good talker has a chance
with us. Of the good taikers that have en-
livened and enriched our time, Mr. Elihu
Vedder is surely one of the very first You
may know everybody in the world and yet
know few men so interesting. And, when he
chooses to talk about himself and the men he
has known and life as he has lived it, we have
evenings of rare pleasure in store. These
evenings begin with the publication in the
January number of The World's Work of
the first of four installments of his delightful
reminiscences. What he writes may be de-
scribed as a series of flashes.
Ill
The endless discussion of educational sub-
jects, ranging over the whole field of experience
and speculation, always brings us back at last
to the public school; and discussion of the
public school always leads to the country
school; and discussion of the country school
always leads to the character and efficiency
of the teacher. How to train, how to procure,
and how to keep the country public school-
teacher of the proper qualities is the central
subject of all sensible educational discussion
and effort
The best testimony on this subject is the
frank experience of the best country school-
teachers themselves. It is for this reason
that The World's Work invites these
experiences and hopes to induce some of the
best of them to write, by offering good pay-
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
ment for intimate and illuminating narratives
of their personal experiences.
IV
THE articles that have appeared in this
magazine under the heading of The
Way to Health have been of practical help to
many people. To give examples of only two,
the correspondence resulting from Dr. Van
Eeden's "Curing by Suggestion" and of a
patient's account of "How I Got Well" shows
that an increasingly large number are looking
for definite ways whereby they may prevent
the loss of health and efficiency.
These articles are only the outcropping of
some large plans for the immediate future.
Through The Way to Healthy The World's
Work for 1910 will try to be the most impor-
tant health publication of the year.
CITIES AT WORK
THE litigation of commerce clogs the
wheels of judicial machinery in this
country to a degree that would not be tolerated
if justice could see a way to clear itself.
In Antwerp, Belgium, they think they have
solved this problem. Their experiment has
been in operation for forty years, and is
eminently successful. Commercial litigation
in that city is handled exculsively by the
so-called Tribunal de Commerce, whose judges
are chosen from among the leading business
men of the city.
The court is split up into a number of auxili-
ary chambers, which hear cases of special
classes. For instance, a grain merchant com-
plaining about some inequality in the grain trade
does not go before a court whose presiding
officer is a steel merchant or a dry-goods
merchant. He goes into a tribunal at whose
head presides a great grain merchant, familiar
with every detail of the business. His evidence
is handled quickly, with knowledge, and with
a much better grade of justice than it could get
in a court that must learn the business from
the ground up in the course of a single hearing.
There are seventeen of these auxiliary courts,
and their history shows almost uniform
satisfaction with their methods and work.
The courts almost invariably begin with an
attempt to conciliate the litigants, and an
immense amount of litigation is prevented in
this way. If, however, it is necessary to make
a ruling, the result is generally known in four
or five days. In the ordinary civil courts, it
would sometimes take as many years before
the judges had familiarized themselves with
the details of the business sufficiently to render
a full verdict.
Any merchant who is more than twenty-
five years old and has carried on his business
in a reputable manner for five years is eligible
for a judgeship. The judges hold office for
two years, and are elected by the vote of mer-
chants and traders who enjoy municipal voting
privileges, and who pay at least four dollars
a year to the Government as a license tax.
This whole system is one of the monuments
to the ability of the Antwerp Chamber of
Commerce, an institution whose long history
and splendid record is worth studying, if one
would be prepared to take an active part in
city 'government or commercial expansion in
any city in Amercia.
II
A dozen American cities, after long and often
expensive investigations, have gone into the
business of operating ducts underground for
the carrying of wires. The movement to put
all wires underground had its first impetus in the
desire for civic beauty and safety; and at first
it was the habit to force the companies that
owned the wires to build their own ducts.
Presently it was necessary to provide for city
supervision of such construction; and, in time,
there came a natural swing toward city building.
In Baltimore, Md., Utica, N. Y., Erie and
Newcastle, Pa., Auburn, N. Y., New Britain,
Conn., and other cities, this method is in general
use. Baltimore started in 1899, and a report
prepared for the American Civic Federation
shows that in 1907 it had laid more than
5,300,000 feet of ducts, costing nearly
$1,500,000. With one-quarter of the ducts
rented, the city income from this source
paid all fixed charges and the cost of
maintenance.
There has always been considerable opposi-
tion on the part of companies that own wires.
In Baltimore, however, the fire ended most of
this opposition, as the underground wires
suffered little, while the overhead systems were
destroyed within the fire area.
Ill
Every other Thursday, there is a meeting in
St Louis that brings together the industrial
traffic managers of nearly all the big shipping
firms of the city and the members of a bureau
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CITIES AT WORK
I22II
of the Business Men's League of that city.
They meet to talk. The talk is about traffic.
The object of the talk is to devise ways and
means whereby the traffic of St. Louis may
be handled better and more quickly.
At first, of course, these meetings were mainly
engaged in setting forth in detail the sins of
the common carriers. In time, they got down
to more practical matters. Finally, they took
in the representatives of the railroads, and
made an amalgamated traffic body with real
power to do real work.
time that is consumed by the railroad in hand-
ling the tracers that are really used. In other
words, the complaining shipper gets his reply
much earlier than he formerly got it, and the
railroads save half the handling expense of the
tracing.
In a dozen important details, the work of the
freight bureau has relieved both shipper and
carrier of an immense amount of costly and
unnecessary work. Claims, one of the bug-
bears of traffic everywhere, cannot be settled by
outside interests, but the method of filing them
ST. LOUIS'S MAP OF FREIGHT DISTRIBUTION
The figures in the different zones show approximately the number of days required to make delivery of merchandise
shipped from St. Louis
Now, joint committees of shippers and
carriers adjust nearly all local traffic difficulties.
It was a habit with the St. Louis shippers, as
with many others, to send out " tracers' ' on
the same day the shipment was made. This
was supposed to expedite the movement of
the freight. It really caused a lot of
unnecessary work in railroad offices, and by
so much hindered the efficient working of those
departments.
The joint tracing committee that was created,
as a result of the cooperative movement, has
reduced the number of "tracers" by half,
and has more than cut in two the amount of
has been improved, and there has been a
great improvement in handling them.
One of the best accomplishments in this
campaign for cooperation is the making of a
small handbook that shows in exact detail how
long it takes for package freight to reach any
point in the United States, and by what rail-
road. This booklet shows the schedule of
every way-freight that takes package traffic
out of St. Louis. It is from it that the map
shown in this article is copied.
This is a practical reform of the conditions
that cause so much trouble between shippers
and carriers.
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THE INVESTOR WHO TAKES A CHANCE
SOON after the panic of 1907, a. business
man in Baltimore, a great believer
in the United States, determined to
make a speculation after his own design. He
had studied facts. He had noticed that the
people who bought bonds of bankrupt rail-
roads and stocks of tottering railroads had
made a great deal of money, not only in the
greater panic of 1893 but also in the lesser
flurry of 1903.
His initial investment in 1908 amounted to
only $6,190. It was well split up, into these
issues:
Bonds Purchased as the First Investment
Bonis Par Cost yahu
Seaboard Air-Line gold
4 percent. . . . $3,000 $1,600 $2,700
Western Maryland 1st.
4 per cent. . . 2,000 990 1,720
Wabash Pittsburg Ter-
minal 1st. . . . 2,000 1,040 960
International & Great
Northern 4 percent.. 1,000 500 480
Interborough-Met. 4} per
cent 2,000 1,100 1,600
Third Ave. R. R. 4 per
cent 2,000 960 1,400
$12,000 $6,190 $8,860
The only company in the list that was not
in the hands of receivers was the Interborough-
Metropolitan, of New York, and its bonds
were selling at what looked like a receivership
price.
To-day, he has sold all but $3,000 worth, par,
of the original investment — namely, $2,000
Wabash-Pittsburg Terminal bonds and one
bond of the International & Great Northern.
They cost him $1,540, and are worth now
$1,440, a loss of $100, and no interest has been
paid. He announces an intention to hold
them until the roads are set on their feet again,
no matter how long it takes.
The process here outlined is recommended
only to the businesslike buyer, the man who
knows pretty well what he is doing, and who
has both the training and the money to stand
behind such an investment and await results.
The panic of 1907 was very short. If it had
run further and left the country flat, as did
the panic of 1893, ti"s buyer would probably
be waiting yet for the first chance to sell out
any one of the bonds he bought. Some of
them he might never have been able to sell
except at a big loss.
Such buying is wise if it be done well, but
foolish if it be done on guesswork. A scientific
buyer, for example, would not have included
in this list the International & Great Northern
bonds, because they are a third-mortgage on a
property whose value is pretty well measured
by the two prior mortgages. Nor would he
have taken so much of the Third Avenue
Railroad bonds, a junior security whose
prospects at the time amounted to little better
than a blind gamble, for nobody knew whether
they represented any real value at all.
The correct principle may be illustrated in
the case of the Wabash-Pittsburg Terminal
4 per cent, bonds. A litde study of facts
reveals that the actual cash cost of the whole
plant was about equal to the face value of the
first-mortgage bonds. Therefore, the bonds
at half their face value are a good speculative
investment. Sooner or later that plant, repre-
senting a complete terminal system in
Pittsburg, will be worth about what it cost.
Terminal plants in Pittsburg do not grow
when needed. They are intrinsically valuable
for the service they perform.
The chief incentive to investment of this
sort, of course, is the big profit if it be successful.
On the same principle, the scientific investor
of large capital does not buy gilt-edge bonds
in panics; be prefers stocks or junior bonds
that have met big declines but that have good
value behind them. He likes stocks best,
because they are naturally driven down
below their true value by popular fear and
excitement. Public panic is a quick asset
to any man armed with money and knowl-
edge. Knowledge without money pays no
dividends; and money without knowledge
has wings of its own.
This same incentive drives men into the
desire to buy low-priced stocks even to-day,
when low-priced stocks in general are not
cheap. Here is a list of active stocks selected
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THE INVESTOR WHO TAKES A CHANCE
12213
by a young man in Boston as a fair investment
for himself, using what he calls "idle money":
Stocks Bought with Idle Money
Stocks Cost
American Can Company $12
Mercantile Marine pfd 22
United States Reduction & Refining . . 14
Western Maryland 10
Wabash 20
Wheeling & Lake Erie 10
Chicago Great Western ctf 10
Here, he thinks, is a chance to buy $700
worth, par value, of stocks for $98 — and he
cites the fact that a similar collection made
in other days would have given him stocks of
the Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, Atchison,
Baltimore & Ohio, and other companies, now
worth about $1,000. He intends to "sit
tight," and await developments.
This is, of course, pure speculation, with
very little wisdom or deep knowledge.
Because this is a wonderful country, it may
turn out all right; but his venture is blind and
without any real prospect of success.
To buy such stocks at a time when catas-
trophe looms large on the immediate horizon
is good speculation. To buy them at a time
when the market is high is to lay up a heritage
of disappointment. It is nothing wonderful
for a speculator of this type to make 100 per
cent, in a few months following a panic. A
man who bought United States Steel at 20
a little more than a year ago now has a profit
of 300 per cent. A similar buyer of Rock
Island common stock would have made nearly
200 per cent. The general opinion of the
most conservative judges is that he earns
what he gets.
The habit of buying in this way is a sort of
disease. I knew a man who lived for nearly
twenty years in Wall Street, in close touch
with affairs. He said he never speculated.
He meant that he never gambled on margin.
But he also said that he never bought a stock
at more than half its face value, and never sold
it under three-quarters of its face value. He
considered himself the most scientific investor
in the world, and spent many useful years
teaching other men his methods.
He died in the middle of the panic of 1907;
and his executor appraised his estate at $725.
He died, they said, of worry.
From a long experience in the financial
world, it may be concluded that the proper
function of the low-priced stock and the
speculative bond is not to make up the bulk
of an estate. The man who studies nothing
else but this, and who devotes the whole of
his funds and his time to trying to pick "win-
ners" from the list of speculative issues, is
pretty sure to lose in the end most of what he
gains by hard work.
The true investor need not, however, turn
his back entirely upon low-priced stocks and
bonds. They should be bought at times.
In a large fund, it is wise to sprinkle in a few
semi-investment bonds, securities that give
high revenue, some chance of large advance,
and a little gamble on the country. They
should be bought, however, only at times
when they sell low, and when, therefore, the
chance of advance is greatest.
The schedule of part of the estate of a
New Jersey investor who left about $50,000
invested in securities may be taken as a sort
of model. The proportion of his investment
was as follows:
Analysis of a $50,000 Investment
Gilt-edge bonds and stocks . . . 32 per cent.
Standard railroad stocks and bonds 18 per cent.
Unlisted bonds of good quality . . 16 per cent.
Mortgages 10 per cent.
Speculative or semi-speculative . . 19 per cent.
Mining stocks 5 per cent.
The speculative stocks covered railroad,
industrial, and street-railway issues. They
were bought in 1903 and 1904, and showed
at the time of his death a profit of more than
100 per cent. Two of them had begun to
pay dividends. The mining stocks were
listed issues, representing big and well-known
producers of copper.
In this estate, the net annual increase in
value between the time the securities were
bought and the time of the buyer's death was
a little below 4 per cent. It is nothing wonder-
ful, but it was gained at a minimum of risk.
If he had used the same judgment at all times,
the average would probably have been main-
tained over any length of time. He made it
a rule to sell out when prices reached a level
at which he would never have bought any bond
or stock; and to buy only when the general
market reached a level of prices well below
the average.
This "average" is not hard to obtain. He
used a table that includes twenty railroad and
twelve industrial stocks, and that has been
kept up for a great many years by one of the
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12214 LENDING A HUNDRED MILLIONS TO INDIVIDUALS
financial publications. Anyone who has a
connection with a banking house can always
obtain the average figures over any period
of time by asking for it in a letter.
A few weeks ago, a letter came into this
office from a New England woman. She
had, she said, only a few thousand dollars.
It was so little that she could not live on the
proceeds if she invested it, so she had made
a connection with a brokerage house, and
was making a handsome living by buying
speculative stocks and selling them again at
a profit. Her little list showed nearly $1,000
profit in nine months. What she wanted to
k know was how she could do it over again.
In effect, she was advised to take her profits
and run as fast as she could. Of course, she
will not do it; and probably she will not thank
anybody for telling her to do it. After awhile,
she will probably come back and want help
in rescuing the last few hundreds of dollars
from the pitiless maw of Wall Street, and by
that time she will be reading Mr. Lawson
faithfully. Hindsight is always better than
foresight. It will teach her, at last, how to keep
her cash; but she will not have the cash to
keep by that time.
The result is about as inevitable as the fall
of night. If outsiders could stand in the Wall
Street market and systematically beat the
Street at its own game, how could the game
continue? C. M. K.
LENDING A HUNDRED MILLIONS TO
INDIVIDUALS DURING THE PANIC
IN THE period of financial distress follow-
ing the panic of October, 1907, a produce
merchant in a Western city found
himself in financial difficulty. He could not
borrow any more money at the banks, even
at a high rate of interest. He had nothing
which he could quickly turn into cash. There
seemed to be no escape from bankruptcy.
Confronted with this gloomy outlook, he
heard some of his neighbors discussing life
insurance at his club one evening. He had
a premium due and it reminded him of an
added burden. Their further conversation,
however, made him think of it differently,
for they spoke of borrowing on their policies
from the insurance companies.
He went home and examined the loan
provisions of his policies. One large policy
which he had carried for fifteen years had a
loan value of $30,000, and that of the smaller
one which he had carried longer was $1,750.
Here was the money to save him. Only one
fear remained in his mind — that the insurance
companies, like the savings-banks, might
require a sixty days' notice before lending. But
his application was acted upon immediately.
Within a few days after he sent his policies
to the companies as collateral, he received the
$31,750, and his bankruptcy was prevented.
Such cases happened all over the country
during the panic. There are no figures
available showing to just what extent the
life insurance companies stood between thou-
sands of men and failure. The figures do
show, however, that during the two years 1907
and 1908 (which cover the period of depres-
sion), the amount of loans on policies increased
by the tremendous sum of 168 million dollars.
Probably three-fourths of that amount was
direct borrowing by policyholders in the six
months from September, 1907, to February,
1908, inclusive. In other words, during the
period of tightest money conditions the life
insurance companies distributed about 100
million dollars in cash on demand all over
the country, requiring only the assignment of
the policies as collateral.
This was a great public service in a time of
threatened calamity. The loan proviso in the
life insurance contract may be of so much
importance to the holder that he should take
every precaution to see that, without requiring
the termination of the policy, it guarantees
specified loan values for each year. Such
precaution may save the policyholder from
failure in time of stress.
But having done this, the policyholder should
put the idea of borrowing on his policy out of
his mind. His life insurance is for his estate
in case of his death and not to be used as a
savings account except in cases of emergency.
For by borrowing on the policy, the amount of
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LENDING A HUNDRED MILLIONS TO INDIVIDUALS 12215
its protection to his family is lessened by the
amount of the loan. The family of the
Western merchant would have received $78,250
if he had died after he borrowed on the policies,
instead of the $110,000 which they would
originally have received. The loans, therefore,
should be paid back as soon as possible, so as
to leave the estate fully protected. Some
careful men have felt that they did not wish
to reduce their insurance, even in panic times.
When they have borrowed on their limited-
payment or ordinary life policies, therefore,
they have taken out cheap term insurance to
cover the amount of the loan until repaid. In
the case of the produce merchant, $32,000
term insurance would have cost about $500 a
year, or approximately 1.6 per cent, of his loan.
Policy loans have been a feature of the
contracts of a number of companies for many
years, but their real benefit was never so
apparent as in the panic days. In the year
1907 the loans were $82,500,000 — more
than twice as great as the loans in 1906, which
were $40,300,000. In 1908, which also
included part of the panic year, the loans
were $85,800,000. From some investigations
made this year, it seems apparent that the
demand for loans has decreased about one-
half, so that they have gone back to about the
amount which the pre-panic experience showed
to be normal.
The people who pay back these loans as soon
as possible are very wise. In the first place,
they restore the full insurance value. In the
second place, at any time except during a
panic they can probably borrow the money
at a lower rate elsewhere. The insurance
companies charge 5 and 6 per cent, in advance,
which means 5.26 and 6.38 per cent When
the 1.6 per cent premium on the term-policy
to keep up the full insurance is added, the
rate becomes 6.86 and 7.98 per cent. In panic
times this is very low. In other times it is
needlessly high.
From the standpoint of the companies, a
normal number of policy loans may safely
be considered as among the best investments
they can make. The amount loaned on any
individual policy is well within the amount of
the reserve, or self-insurance fund, held to
its credit; the rate of interest — 5 or 6 per cent.
— is in most cases above the average rate
which can be earned upon other securities.
Moreover, the security is absolute, because
if the loan is not re-paid it is deducted, with any
unpaid interest, in the ultimate settlement of
the policy. Only one point seems to be
vulnerable in the plan and that relates to the
granting of loans on demand. Under ordinary
circumstances the companies can meet the
requests of their policyholders for cash loans
through the volume of funds which reach them
day by day in the form of premiums, dividends,
interest, and rental returns and maturing
securities, a large part of which has to be
invested. Their daily cash balances are more
than sufficient to meet such demands at once.
But in the case of great financial panic and
the corollary, a long period of financial depres-
sion ensuing, demands for cash loans might
possibly force the companies to sacrifice some
of their securities in a falling market and
thereby prolong the period of financial depres-
sion rather than hasten its conclusion. It was
this thought which the insurance commis-
sioners had in mind when recently, in annual
convention, they voted that the practice of
granting loans on demand was unwise and
dangerous. The suggestion has therefore been
made that the companies incorporate a pro-
vision in their policies, reserving the right to
defer the granting of loans for a period of
sixty or ninety days after the request for a
loan is made. Such a clause would not, as
a rule, be put into effect save under exceptional
circumstances, and then only when it was
clearly seen that failure to enforce it would
threaten the stability of the company. In
several states the law now requires the com-
panies, after the policies have been in force
three years, to grant loans "at any time."
Liberality in the conditions of life insurance
policies has been the aim of the companies
from the beginning of the business, but it is
for the policyholder to determine whether or
not the liberal features of the contract are to
be put to advantage. It is always a source
of satisfaction to know that one possesses a
piece of property, of whatever nature, upon
which money can be raised, if needed, even
though that need may never occur. A policy
of life insurance with a loan value is such a
piece of property; but, viewing life insurance
from the protective standpoint only, it should
not be pledged to the company for a loan
except in case of dire necessity. When a man
has determined upon the amount of life
insurance that he considers necessary prop-
erly to protect his dependents, he should
maintain it at that amount and not decrease it
Digitized by UOOQIC
LITTLE STORIES ABOUT E. H. HARRIMAN
A TRAIN on the Union Pacific stopped
at the foot of a long slope to take
water. Two minutes passed. A
man came around the engine and spoke to the
engineer.
"How long does it take to fill you up?"
he asked:
"About three minutes," said the engineer.
The man frowned. "Why don't they use
a bigger feed-pipe ?"
"Can't do it. This is as big as the engine
can take," said the engineer.
"Then we shall have to get bigger engines
on this road," said the other, closing the con-
versation.
The man was E. H. Harriman, the time
was in 1898, and the trip was one of his first
over the road that he had lately come to dom-
inate. The story is told in the offices at
Omaha. It may be true, or it may not. Hun-
dreds of anecdotes find currency when there
is no voice to call them false. In any event, no
other tale that one hears better illustrates the
directness, the straight analysis from symp-
tom to remedy, that made the mind of Mr.
Harriman the greatest curative genius that
ever was bent upon the problems of the rail-
road world. His eye took in a mistake, and
his mind leaped straight to the cure.
II
There had not been a meeting of Union
Pacific directors for a considerable time. The
executive committee attended to the small
routine matters such as come up in " the dog-
days." An old director of the road met Mr.
Harriman on Broad Street:
"Quite a while between meetings, isn't it!"
he said, laughingly.
" Nothing to meet about," responded the
other.
"These hard times, the fees to directors "
began his friend, still banteringly.
"If you see anybody that wants his fee,
send him to me and I'll pay it," said Harriman,
"for the time is worth the money to me!"
The tale touches upon an important char-
acteristic of the man. Years ago, when he was
a director of the Baltimore & Ohio, and not
its master, he went to a meeting called for the
purpose of authorizing the issue of millions of
stock for improvements. The chairman began
talking about the platform at Baltimore. He
dilated on its bad condition, and planned
half a dozen new kinds of platforms. Harri-
man listened for a while, fidgeted about, then
burst out:
"Mr. Chairman, suppose you fix that plat-
form up. Let's get down to business."
The Harriman meetings were, they say,
the "hottest" meetings held in the financial
district. It was a rapid-fire process.
The secretary read something.
The chairman said: "Well?"
Somebody moved an adoption.
It was adopted.
"Go on!" said the chairman — and only
once in a while somebody objected, or argued,
or wanted to discuss.
The discussion generally ended with: "Oh,
I know all about that. It's all right. Let's
put it through!" — and it went through. It
has been said that an inquisitive member
of the executive committee once held a
watch on the proceedings and found that
it took thirty-six seconds to appropriate six
millions for equipment.
Ill
Succinctness marked not only the meetings
and the general administrative features of the
Harriman system, but also the remarks of its
head, at all times. Perhaps the most com-
pact, pointed, and dangerous sentence he
ever gave to the public was his reply to
the question whether he had used his
influence to injure Mr. Thomas F. Ryan —
that laconic "Not yet!" But a second
retort has been, so far, forgotten by his
numerous biographers.
Mr. Harriman had just come back from
Europe. While he was gone he had lost the
Chicago & Alton, but he did not know it,
though he suspected something. A dozen
reporters sat in the big office, asking him
questions.
"Is it true," asked one, "that the Union
Pacific has formally taken over the Alton?"
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AN APOSTLE TO LABOR
12217
"I don't know whether the Union Pacific
could stand it!" flashed Mr. Harriman.
Only two reporters printed it; but the dart
landed where it was intended to land, in the
hide of an enemy, and it was not welcomed
with laughter.
IV
In the hour when he was most hated by the
people of his country, the clerical forces of
the Harriman system prepared, by his order,
a monumental summary of the work that Mr.
Harriman had done. It was a mass of figures,
showing how cost of transportation had been
reduced on the Harriman lines. To a railroad
man it spoke volumes concerning grades,
equipment, cost of fuel, straightening of
line — all the details of one of the greatest
industries on earth. With it lay a score
of diagrams — some few of which have come
to light in reports.
It rested in a pigeon-hole on Mr. Harriman's
desk, beside the back window in the back
office. He showed it to a visitor, who talked to
him about the unaccountable enmity of the
public.
"They will forget it!" said Mr. Harriman.
"But it hurts!" said the other.
"Yes — but this remains," said the master;
" and it is my passport to history."
And that was the faith that faced the mob,
smiling and unafraid.
AN APOSTLE TO LABOR
THE STORY OF CHARLES STELZLE, A PREACHER TO WHOM LARGE AUDIENCES
LISTEN BECAUSE HE IS A MAN FROM THE RANKS AND SPEAKS AS MAN TO MEN
BY
C. M. MEYER
WHY talk about the ancient Israelites,
the Jebusites, the Hittites and all
the rest of those interesting people ?
They have been a long time dead. It is
easier to study the life of the Chicagoites, the
Brooklynites, the Bostonites, and the Pitts-
burgites, for they are here, and they need it
very much more!"
It was not a gentle rebuke to the preachers,
and his voice had a big, strong note that did
not let the words die out with even the faintest
bit of apology or the slightest tinge of for-
bearance. The speaker was a labor-union
man, a machinist who convinced the Presby-
terians of America that they should have a
Department of Church and Labor, and who
is now its superintendent.
" I say that because I know," he continued.
" I lived in a rear tenement over near the river
on the East Side of New York, where people
are huddled together like animals, when I
was a boy, with my mother and four sisters.
We were very poor. My mother sewed
wrappers, for which she received two dollars
a dozen. It took her three days and three
nights to finish a dozen wrappers, and some-
times I would awake toward morning to see
her still sitting at my bedside, sewing. Often
she had to go supperless in order that we might
have something to eat. We had only a stale
roll with a little salt sprinkled upon it, and
frequently that was all we had for weeks at a
time. It was years before we tasted butter
or fruit. We hardly knew what they were.
I went to work at eight years of age in the
basement of a New York tobacco shop — a
sweat-shop you would call it now. I know
what it means to suffer for want of the barest
necessities of life. If I felt that the church
had no message concerning child-labor, if it
had nothing to say concerning the securing
of a square deal for women, and had no care
for the unsanitary conditions in shops and
factories, I would line up with some other
organization outside of the church. I need
simply think of my mother, broken in health
and sometimes crippled in body because of
the awful suffering of those early years when
she worked to keep us from starving, and of
my four sisters and all that they passed through,
to make me a labor agitator on the other
side against the church and against every
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I22l8
AN APOSTLE TO LABOR
condition and every institution in society to-day
which stands in the way of my people — the
working people — if the church did not care.
But the church does care; if it did'nt, I could
not hold my job."
It was die speech of a workingman, all
through. There was obviously no pretense
about the man who spoke. His words had
tumbled out with the intense speed of the
enthusiast. He had come from the people;
he was of the people; and every preacher
who heard him knew that he was proud of it.
It is the knowledge of men which he gained
on the streets and in the machine-shop that
makes Mr. Stelzle the power that he is among
men of all classes. Workingmen know that
he knows what he is talking about. When he
steps out on the platform, at one of his big
mass-meetings, the crowd cheers him in
anticipation, for they know that it is not an
academic discussion of their problems, or a
theory for the future welfare of mankind that
he is going to present to them. Any man
who would appear before a crowd of trades-
unionists of this country with a visionary
scheme would most likely be laughed out of
the meeting. Workingmen do their own
thinking, and they are not easily convinced.
But they have faith in Mr. Stelzle's sincerity
of purpose, even though they may not always
agree with his views.
Not long ago, Mr. Stelzle wrote a series of
articles against the saloon, which went out
to the labor press of the country — he has for
years been supplying these papers with weekly
articles — and they were rather strong in their
sentiment against the liquor interests. Neces-
sarily, there are a great many workingmen
tied up with these interests. Immediately
there was raised a storm of protest. The
Bartenders' Union didn't propose to have
him criticize their business, and they said so.
They even went farther, and sent a copy of
one of the editorials in their paper — The
Mixer and Server — to every labor paper
in the country, protesting vigorously against
their printing any more of "the reverend
gentleman's stuff," and openly charging
that he was in the employ of the Anti-Saloon
League. Some of the labor editors crawled
behind their editorial desks, but several of the
biggest and best labor papers in the country
came out strongly in favor of Mr. Stelzle.
Here is an interesting clipping from the
Tribune, a labor paper of Cedar Rapids, Iowa
— interesting, because it shows a working-
man's way of "hitting back."
"We are in receipt of a marked editorial from
the pen of Jere Sullivan, in the last issue of The
Mixer and Server. It is a vicious knock on the
Rev. Charles Stelzle, who, as head of the Labor
Department of a religious organization, is
endeavoring to bring about a better understanding
between the Church and labor. Labor papers
throughout the country are printing his weekly
letters. The Tribune uses them as they suit our
fancy. To all of which the august head of the
bartenders objects, mainly for the reason — as
he says — that such articles are paid for in cash,
intimating thereby that the church in question is
cheap and the labor editors the 'fall guys.'
Perhaps we are all that, and more, Jere, but when
it comes to the real, cheap, piking end of the game,
we will commend you to one in your own class.
Before knocking the preacher who has something,
dig into your own crew, who have nothing. That's
all to your little knock from this end of it"
In the beginning of his work, when Mr.
Stelzle first went to the American Federation
of Labor conventions as a fraternal delegate
from the National Presbyterian Church —
a plan inaugurated by him with the idea of
bringing two great forces for social betterment
into closer relation with each other — the
thing was regarded as a joke by the delegates
present. But the joke was not quite so
apparent when he sat down after addressing
the convention. The buzz of comment that
followed carried no flavor of amusement
When Mr. Gompers introduced Rev. Charles
Stelzle to the convention, and a rather short,
stockily built man came forward, a great
many of the delegates were surprised at his
non-clerical appearance. He looked for all
the world like one of their own labor leaders,
with his quiet, business-like manner. And
presently, as he began to talk to them, his
simple, dignified bearing, his full, rich voice
that reached the last man in the hall, and
above all, his intense sincerity made them
forget that his presence at the convention was
only an experiment. He seemed to belong
there. He was a workingman among working
people. Every word he said convinced them
of this. He talked on a level with them. He
was one of their own crowd. After he finished,
it was apparent from the cheers of approval
that he had been taken into the fold. For
the men felt that he was a cool, clear-headed
man with a big ideal that he proposed to
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AN APOSTLE TO LABOR
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attain, and which, moreover, he proposed
workingmen should also attain. To-day, there
is no address at the annual convention of
the American Federation of Labor that is
taken more seriously than is Mr. Steele's,
and probably no labor leader who is shown
greater respect
It is not easy to attract an audience of
almost 15,000 men to hear a religious address,
as Mr. Stelzle does; and to get their attention
and hold it for an hour and a half argues
pretty well for the speaker. Mr. SteLde's
manner of speaking is clear and concise, and
he is always logical. He talks as a man to
men. But it is his eloquence to which they
respond: that quality compounded of force,
emotionalism, and sincerity. Moreover, he
is a strong individualist. He cares nothing
for types. His message is to each individual
man, and he is always specific. All his life
it has been some particular thing against
which he had to fight — some existing con-
dition, rather than a theory, which has aroused
in him a spirit of protest. He learned from
the beginning to direct all his forces against
one thing at a time, and to strike hard until
his purpose was accomplished. On this plan
his lectures and speeches are built up. This
explains why he speaks to more working-
men in his popular meetings than does
any other man in the world; certainly to
more than does even the most noted labor
leader himself.
Yet he does not go out of his way to please
workingmen. He hits them just as hard as
he hits the church — and that is pretty hard
at times. When he hears a workingman's
bitter protest against "class distinctions,"
he is apt to call him up sharply. " I worked
for years," he says, "in Hoe's machine-shop
in New York. I knew the men in the shop
pretty well. Funny thing about those men —
and I guess they weren't very different from
workingmen anywhere else — they were quite
ready to criticize the rich because of their
class 'uppishness'; but I used to notice that
at lunch-time the laborers got off into a corner
by themselves, because the journeymen refused
to eat their sandwiches and drink their beer
with them. The draughtsmen considered
themselves superior to the pattern-makers,
and the pattern-makers believed that they
were a step higher in the social scale than the
machinists; the machinists looked down upon
the moulders — and so it went. There were
about seven different grades of society among
the two thousand men in the shop. Talk about
the 'aristocracy' — they couldn't be more
particular about their associates than these
workingmen!"
Mr. Stelzle goes on the principle that work-
ingmen like to hear the truth — no matter
how hard it hits — if it is presented in the right
spirit. Many a time he has administered
the most stinging rebuke with a smiling face
and an offhand manner, and the audience has
cheered instead of hissed.
Yet he is as loyal to them as the best and
truest labor leader could be, and the men
know it. A year or two ago, a little episode
came to light through the Typographical
Union's publicity man that put a thorough-
going Union Label on Mr. Stelzle. One of
tlye leading magazines of the country had
asked him to write a series of articles, for
which he was to receive in the neighborhood
of $1,000. The first article had been written
and was in the hands of the editor, and the
material for the others had been got together,
when Mr. Stelzle suddenly learned that the
"Big Six" and the magazine in question were
involved in a bitter controversy, the point at
issue hinging on one of the strongest ethical
principles of the labor union. Now, Mr.
Stelzle is a union man — he still carries his
card in the Machinists' Union. He did not
feel that he could stand on the side of the
magazine after he learned the point at issue.
But $1,000 is a good sum of money to throw
away; moreover, illness in his family was
making heavy inroads on his income, and he
was working hard to buy a home. But he
wrote the editor a courteous letter, asking for
the return of his first article and frankly
explaining his position. The editor "regret-
ted" Mr. Stelzle's action and reluctantly
returned the manuscript; and the "Big Six"
laid the incident away in its memory and had
a greater admiration for the "Apostle to
Labor" than ever before.
People often ask Mr. Stelzle what he is
trying to do. He has repeatedly replied*
" I am on this job not so much to get working-
men to go to church as I am to get the church
to go to workingmen. I am still a workingman
and I care more for the welfare of the working-
man than I care for the development of the
church. After all, the church is simply a
means to an end, and not an end in itself.
But a square deal is the thing we are after: a
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AN APOSTLE TO LABOR
square deal for the workingman and a square
deal for the church. And the thing to do is
to talk less about building up the church and
more about building up the people.' '
It is a curious fact that the questioners are
among the church people. The workingmen
do not care much about the Presbyterian
Church, as such, but they know that Charles
Stelzle, the Presbyterian minister, stands for
them in every case, no matter what kind of
an audience he addresses, and they trust him
absolutely. "Most workingmen don't care
a rap for the church to-day," Mr. Stelzle says,
"because they believe that it is all up in the
air, or has simply to do with the hereafter.
But I believe that they are naturally religiqus,
though their religion does not always express
itself in an orthodox manner. And the labor
question itself is fundamentally a moral
problem. Stripped of their practical pro-
grammes, socialism, communism, and anarch-
ism are all moral questions. But before any
one of these systems can be successfully
introduced — if ever it seems wise to introduce
them — there must first of all be a radical
change in the hearts of men. Josh Billings
once said that before you can have an honest
horse-race, you must have an honest human
race. And there is the secret of the whole
business. It is a question of getting the right
kind of men. That is the business of the
church. If the church is not doing this, she
had better quit the job!"
Before he was twenty-one, Mr. Stelzle
started out on this church business of finding
the " right kind of men." He was in a machine
shop, but that was only his bread-and-butter
occupation. All his life he had been in some
form of Christian work — he was an elder
in a Presbyterian Church at the age of twenty-
one, and he had already organized a mission
of his own, conducted by himself in the evenings
and Sundays, without compensation of any
kind; in fact, he himself raised the money for
the necessary expenses from among his friends,
most of whom were as poor as he. Then his
employers gave him two afternoons a week
off — raising his wages to bring his income
up to the regular weekly amount — in order
to permit him to devote more time to his
mission. But the time came when he decided
to give all his attention to religious work. The
superintendent of the shop offered to make him
one of his assistants if he would remain; he
said that there was no limit to the opportunities
for a man of his type in the big plant But
Mr. Stelzle was not tempted away from his
purpose. He went to the Moody Bible
Institute in Chicago, and he had to borrow
thecioney for his railroad fare.
His purpose, Mr. Stelzle says, was to work
among men. He had no particular desire
to become a minister, but he was interested
in workingmen, and it seemed to him that
the pulpit offered a larger opportunity for
helping them. He has the workingman's
sturdy faith in the wisdom of the masses.
He says that the workingmen who live on
the lower East Side of New York are
among the most serious-minded people in
the world. To them life has become such
a dreary task that many have long since
forgotten how to smile, and their laugh is
an empty, hollow thing of derision. To them
every measure for social betterment is of
tremendous importance.
It is these hopeless, futureless people that
Mr. Stelzle would have the church turn to with
a sympathetic understanding, and not with
the old-time patronage. "Study them," he
advises, " and learn to understand them. They
are men like the rest of us. They have their
hopes and ambitions, their joys and their
sorrows as we have. You cannot deal with
them as the entomologist does with his million
bugs — classify and label them. They refuse
to be grouped, and they prove it by annihilating
the carefully made deductions of the sociologist.
They are flesh-and-blood men — men with
warm, red blood in their veins, that sometimes
burns like fire."
Mr. Stelzle believes that what is needed in
the church to-day is a greater democracy.
Men should meet men as equals, and not reach
down in a vain desire to "help."
The principles involved in most labor
troubles are not so much economic as they are
moral. When child-labor is abolished, when
women are not forced to do work beyond their
strength, when there are better sanitary con-
ditions in shops and factories, then labor
troubles will be relieved of their bitterness; they
will take the form of ordinary business dealings,
as between manufacturer and seller. That
it is possible to bring this condition about, Mr.
Stelzle firmly believes; and by bringing the
church and labor together, he hopes to
establish a better understanding between them
which will, ultimately, extend to every class of
society.
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THE CONFESSIONS OF A SUCCESSFUL TEACHER 12221
A leading labor man wrote to him the raise the working people to a higher plane,
other day: "I have implicit confidence in and my only regret is that we have so
you and believe you to be engaged sin- very few of your kind connected with the
cerely in this noble work of trying to church to-day."
THE CONFESSIONS OF A SUCCESSFUL
TEACHER
WHY WE HATE OUR WORK AND WHY WE ARE ASHAMED OF OUR PROFESSION — THE
DEGRADATION OF HUNTING AND HOLDING A JOB — THE INCOMPETENCE OF SCHOOL-
BOARDS, THE TYRANNY OF LOW-GRADE PRINCIPALS, AND THE SHAM OF TEACHERS
BY
ONE OF THEM
AT THE risk of offending any possible
/A reader by egotism, let me say that I
«*• A- teach in a state which pays, I believe,
the second highest salaries of any in the
country. The women even draw the same
salaries as men for parallel positions. I have
a position in the second largest city of the
state, a position which is permanent unless
extreme incompetence' is displayed. The
salary here is paid for twelve months of the
year. My work has always been in my
special line, in schools of which the tone was
good and the discipline easy. I have invariably
been on the best terms with the principals
and the other teachers; most of the students,
I think, respect me; some of them like me;
and a few cause me inconvenience by adoring
me. Again, in order that these soul-searchings
may have any weight, you must understand
that I may fairly lay claim to be representative
of a large body of teachers, for I graduated
from a normal school, taught in the grades,
graduated from a university, and have since
taught in the high schools of both the country
and the city.
And so I come to my confessions, which
for the present shall be two in number. First,
speaking for just all of us, we hate our work.
Second, speaking for most of us, but especially
for those who thank heaven they are not as
other teachers, we are ashamed of our profession.
TEACHING IS HATEFUL AT BEST
The reasons for the hate lie not so much
in the work itself as in the conditions surround-
ing it. We will put aside the objections
often urged that the pay is small and the
routine exhausting and monotonous. In the
community of which I speak, the first is not
valid; though we are a class with educated
tastes, and though we do more than we are
paid for, yet in comparison with other salaried
callings we receive a sufficient wage. It
scarcely need be said that one working for
others cannot expect to grow rich. College
professors get as little, sometimes less com-
paratively, yet there is no lack in the supply
of clever young doctors holding degrees from
German universities, whom no salary could
tempt to take a place in the secondary schools.
To be sure the cook gets as much as we, if
her board be counted as part of her wages,
and the janitor gets more — but who wants
to be a cook or a janitor? And as to the
monotony of the class-room, all work is monot-
onous. There are other reasons for the hate,
which, let me repeat, is almost universal. I
have known but three teachers, beginners
excepted, who have genuinely liked their
work — two men and one woman. Of course,
I have heard much protesting, usually at
teachers' institutes, of enthusiastic interest
and devotion, but we are now in a confessional,
remember, and all the privacy of print.
First, perhaps, among the real causes for
this state of feeling, come the difficulties of
securing and holding a position. A young,
highly-certificated, enthusiastic graduate, who
has no family or political or Masonic or
religious "pull," or who has not gone up to the
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12222 THE CONFESSIONS OF A SUCCESSFUL TEACHER
normal school from a village community
which gladly makes its yearly change of
teachers in her favor, has a heart-numbing
task ahead of her in securing a position. As
it has slowly penetrated the heads of school-
boards that just anybody can't open a book
and educate, many of them have made rulings
to the effect that experience is a necessary
pre-requisite in an applicant. *
"A wise provision," you say.
"But how," laments the beginner, "am I
to acquire experience if I am never allowed
to try my hand?"
A pretty young creature shows her pluck
by ploughing through the summer dust to
interview widely separated trustees. They
are impressed with her looks, her modest
eagerness, her certificates — but someone
asks, "As to experience now?" She has
heard that before, and stammers out some-
thing about training-school.
"Well, we have a regulation "
And she goes, all the eagerness crushed
out of her, to face again the modern problem:
"Why, when one is anxious to work and
fitted to work, can no work be found?"
In the end, she squeezes in somewhere, some-
how, because she has to, but the process is
disheartening.
On the other hand, the teacher who has
acquired nerves and wrinkles in the service
has even a harder fight For her lies only the
hope of getting into some larger city, where
she will be allowed to grow gray, since she
can't do more harm than the modern methods
of the others can set right. But a position
in one of the larger cities means "pull." It
may be objected that similar struggles await
the beginner and the aged in all professions,
but in none of them is there the humiliation
of attempting to display your qualifications
to employers totally unable to judge of them.
The selection of a teacher is placed in the
hands of a local board, consisting usually
of well-meaning but narrow and ignorant
trustees, not unmindful of the consideration
that the applicant for the position of principal
has a family, and may rent the empty house
of the clerk of the board.
At one time there was in a county of this
state, and may be there now, a board which
gave examinations for certificates from the
primary grades to the high school, and but
one member of the board had ever finished a
high-school course. The task of a trustee
is a thankless, unpaid one, and few qualified
men will undertake it In the cities, the
school trustee is most often a politician of
the lowest type. And from a woman trustee
we all pray, " Good Lord, deliver us."
TRYING TO PLEASE EVERYBODY
Granted that one somehow runs the gauntlet
of requirements, fads, and whims, and holds
the coveted job for one year, then comes the
question of how to keep it for a second year,
or even for the whole of a first. A teacher
must please everyone, or she thinks she must.
The parents must be pleased, say, by a pre-
tended interest in their affairs, by teaching
classes in Sunday-school, by subscriptions to
local enterprises. In the cities where positions
are fairly permanent, all this does not grind
the teacher so heavily, but even here there is
a present fad of mothers' meetings, which we
all pretend to find " such a help."
The high school teacher escapes a good
deal of this agony, but she has her afflictions
in the shape of fraternities, athletics, debates,
and "entertainments." Ah, these entertain-
ments! "We must have money; the Glee
Club needs music; the team want suits. It
is time for an entertainment." And then the
experienced teacher knows that there will
be time for nothing else for six weeks to come.
For with all the vaunted self-reliance of
young America, our boys and girls seem
strangely unable to put through anything by
themselves. They can't even manage their"
own sports; they are helpless annually before
the school paper; their debates have come
to be a contest between the coaching teachers,
who spend weeks in digging out what the
student-representatives glibly spout; and oh!
and oh! and oh! their "commencements."
The young people must be pleased; the
principal and superintendent must be pleased;
and the community must be pleased. Your
morals must suit everyone, from the Women's
Christian Temperance Union on. Woe to
the teacher who dares to smoke! And those
of the sex who do not smoke are compelled
by the law of many states to teach absurdities
about the injurious effects of tobacco and
alcohol. I have heard a teacher called by
name from the pulpit and informed that she
was leading souls to hell — yes, the broad,
Anglo-Saxon word was used — because she
attempted to please some of the young people
(certainly not herself) by dancing with them.
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But we are not supposed to be independent
When the community is not bullying us, the
principals and superintendents are cracking
the whip with practised hands. Teachers
are forced to belong to and pay dues to asso-
ciations which are not only tiresome but useless.
I have seen teachers excluded from the sessions
of institutes which by law they were compelled
to attend, because they did not wear the badge
of another association. These associations
consist of much talk, and their primary purpose
is to give prominence to a few who seek polit-
ical preferment in the department of education.
"a token of regard "
Besides such hold-ups, there are the countless
assessments to buy gold watches for some men
you particularly loathe. This Oriental sort of
gift-making crops up constantly, and we
contribute through cowardice or false shame.
The recipients must know perfectly how the
money was extorted, but they permit it and
make pleased speeches.
Again, our contracts are broken with
impunity; or we are refused a contract; or
the board signs nothing, so that we are helpless
if the school term and our salary are cut short
— while we are required to sign a blanket
contract agreeing to any re-assignment, lower-
ing of salary, or removal, without any protest
on our part. We are told in effect by a body
of amiable and upright citizens: "If you make
any outcry about our taking a part of your
salary, we will come back and take your
position." And the protestant will find it
pretty hard to get another, for the notoriety
of the contest practically blacklists him with
other boards, to whom he cannot give a
reference. Anything is better than a contest,
even if one has the right and the law on
his side.
So much for the attending circumstances.
I do not think the work itself, leaving aside for
a moment the matter of discipline, is distaste-
ful to most teachers, except when one is
trying to teach a subject that he does not
himself understand. In the grades he must
have a knowledge of everything, from card-
board, sloyd, and agriculture to four-part sing-
ing and water-colors. In the high schools,
especially the smaller ones, an applicant pre-
pared to teach mathematics may be required
to take a class in French. But this sort of
thing is becoming less frequent, and the
growth of the department system, fast finding
favor in the grades and never abandoned in
the private schools, is encouraging. Another
misery which many teachers dislike exceedingly
is the drudgery of correcting papers and note-
books, and many of us make only a pretense
at it, which the students are quick to discover.
SHAM AND HYPOCRISY WIDESPREAD
It is pretense of this and of every sort which
is a dry-rot in the school system, and is one
great cause of the hate of the profession by
those who know it from the inside. There
is hardly a high-school catalogue which does
not make a great pretense of the amount of
composition work required weekly. I know
of but two or three which live up to their own
requirement, and of not one where all the
papers are carefully corrected by the teacher
and returned. Drawings from objects are
displayed by fourth-grade pupils and the
perspective excites the wondering admiration
of the visiting artist. This decreases some-
what when he finds that the teacher made a
careful drawing on the blackboard, which
the students copied. In manual-training
exhibits, beautifully carved chests appear —
partially carved by the students, after which
the panels were put together by a workman-
like carpenter. Note-books of small children
are shown as containing the first "rough
work," which are models of neatness and
accuracy, but some little neighbor will
brazenly tell you that the work was done
first in pencil, carefully corrected by the
teacher, and copied.
On visiting days recitations proceed so
beautifully that even the uninitiated might
guess that there had been careful drill for two
days. It is the sham of these exhibits, rather
than the work of preparation, which causes
most teachers to loathe them. But "all the
other schools have them," and we have not
the courage to laugh in the face of a confr&re
and say, "Bless you, my classes couldn't
possibly do such work without help." No,
we throw in a little brag about the really best
work not being quite finished in time for the
display. Or we say: "Well, you would be
surprised to see how fond my children are of
writing compositions. I saved some of the
papers for the university man to see, and he
would hardly believe that high-school students
could do such high-grade work!"
Even if a teacher does not have a rebellious,
evil-thinking crowd to manage, and so escapes
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12224 THE CONFESSIONS OF A SUCCESSFUL TEACHER
the constant tenseness which kills, there is
more or less police work to do. Part of the
oversight which is forced on the teacher is of
a nature extremely repugnant to the young
women who make up the large majority of
the force, and is such as a young woman
should not know anything about.
The requirements for discipline alone call
for a combination of self-control, firmness,
justice, moderation, patience, and sense of
humor as is rarely found — but is always
fondly expected — by the pupil and the
public. Even the luckiest of us have had
spells of failure in this part of our work, when
the day was faced with loathing and the night
contained only dreams of mutinous students
running amuck. Any teacher can tell you
that when she dreams of school at all, it is
always of a bad school. And, long after
such seasons are past, their dark influence
remains in a dull indifference to most of
the children in whom we are supposed to
take so vital an interest, or in the active
detestation of a few.
There are some other things about the work
which are distasteful, such as the necessity
for instilling the simplest fundamentals of
etiquette; or the queer notions that school
boards have of economy, alternating with
ill-placed lavishness, which can handicap
and exasperate one so dreadfully. Then
there is the need for accommodating the pace
of the class to the minds of the mediocre, from
which ensues much marking of time that is
unbearable to the teacher who happens to
be also something of a scholar. He must
teach just a few facts, feeling all the while not
only that he is not really presenting his sub-
ject truthfully, but refusing bread to those
who least deserve a stone.
But, after the pretense and the discipline,
the greatest cause of our hate is the horrid
suspicion which often attacks us that the
knowledge which we so labor to impart is not
worth the trouble. Teachers in the lower
grades are free of this, though they suffer
more from the intense seriousness with which
they and their guides and philosophers talk —
for once let me say it aloud — "rot."
Again, how many of us have faced a student
protesting, "I don't see what good it does me
to learn this; I'll forget it by next term." We
have no answer, and so fall back on triteness
and tell him that he is not yet old enough to
judge what is good for himself. But may he
not know better than we do — and, after all,
what is the use? Of course, the value of an
education lies more in the people and the
place where it is got than in the subjects, but
why can't they be of value, too? A teacher
who has some conscientious scruples about
drawing pay for useless work, going around
in a vicious circle of fitting people to go on
and perhaps come back to teach others
the same useless knowledge, cannot be
expected to show burning enthusiasm in
the performance of his daily task.
TEACHERS ASHAMED OP THEIR PROFESSION
Now as to the second confession — our
shame. The confessions here do not represent
so large a class, but unfortunately that class
comprises the best educated, most refined,
most cultured members of the profession.
These men and women are ashamed of being *
known as teachers, and regard as the highest
of compliments an artless statement that they
do not seem like teachers. Followers of other
professions appear to find pleasure in each
other's society, and delight to have a social
rubbing together. We teachers flee, not
only from an institute the minute it closes,
but from a club or a summer-resort m
which is known to have a preponderating
number of teachers. Efforts have been
made to draw teachers together socially, but
it can't be done.
"Did you tell the directory man that I am
a teacher?" asked one rebellious school-
mistress of her mother.
"Why, what else could I say?"
"Tell him I'm a lady-barber, if you like,
but don't put the other into print."
Those who have gone to college after a year
or so of teaching, and have incautiously let
slip that fact, find themselves socially left
out, branded with hateful nicknames, and
eyed askance by professor and students.
The reason for this state of feeling is the natural
consequence of the conditions surrounding
the profession. These conditions being what
they are, only those of a certain not very high
type will long endure them, and with that type
many of us do not care to be identified. It
will be most convenient here to speak of the
men and women separately, so let me, even
though a teacher, for a moment be polite, and
give first place to the women.
Most families of a certain income fit their
daughters for self-support It is convenient
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to have them earn something through several
years; it may even become necessary, and a
modern independence prompts the girls to
make use of their training. Leaving out
of count the comparative few that have special
gifts, the fewer who are fit for a profession, and
the handful who have business ability, most
girls find themselves with no choice but that
of library work, nursing, or teaching. The
first pays only starvation wages; nursing,
having proven more exhausting than romantic
in its details, is not so popular as it once was;
remains then but the other. The unpleasant
features are not apparent to one who knows
nothing of the path. You do not hear teachers
advising their pupils to fit themselves for
teaching.
Nevertheless, the women of the profession
are as a rule of a much better quality than
the men, whom they are inclined to despise.
Still they must work under these men; indeed,
they prefer that to working under other women,
and they must submit to being directed and
talked at by a masculine creature who is
usually their inferior in mental endowment,
and almost invariably in refinement. (The
men of better stuff soon get weeded out.)
« They must please these men, who have the
running of the machine entirely in their
hands, and the feminine tendency to propitiate
is turned into cringing by the domineering
attitude of those with a little momentary power.
MEN TEACHERS ARE LOW-GRADE
The few men who enter the teaching force
may be divided into three classes: (1) There
are the older men, usually poorly educated,
often ungrammatical. They joined the ranks
when certificates were easier to obtain than
now, and hold fast to the executive, lucrative
positions. The almost stationary nature of
the regular salaries makes the doing of a
little politics really necessary for a man with
a family. The difficulties of securing a
place are much slighter for men than for
women, since there are not many of them,
and they are much needed. Nevertheless,
the unpleasantness is still so great that
very few men will face it, or long
endure it Consequently these older men
are left-overs.
(2) Then there are the young men who have
taken up the work only to make money for
further professional training, and intend to
stay in it but a year or so. Though clever,
they are not often good teachers, and are
almost always ashamed of the company they
are keeping. A few of them find it impossible
to break away from a regular monthly salary to
chance it in one of the professions, and they
stay on and on — the most unhappy of a
rather miserable corps.
(3) Lastly, there are the young men who
are the older men brought up-to-date. They
have had good training, a good education as
far as books are concerned, but are lacking
in the indispensable masculine qualities of
backbone, independence, and self-reliance.
As a rule they are narrow and petty, with a
tendency to tyrannize. Their people before
them have had no education, and they them-
selves, having escaped manual labor, feel
like superior beings. Their pride in their
own attainments, which they delight in
imparting to others, is like that of children
who learn a fact, and, fancying all the world
as ignorant as they were that morning,
must needs go round instructing every-
one. They are not ashamed, but we are
ashamed of them.
Everyone does the best he can for us.
Clergymen, college presidents, orators, mothers'
congresses, and editors dress us up in fine
words, glorify our calling, encourage us once
more to the dropping of buckets into empty
wells.
But the fable of the teacher was written
long ago. There was a man, you remember,
who, with his son, had the task of urging on
a loaded donkey. He tried to please everyone,
tried carrying the donkey's load, tried making
the donkey carry him, tried carrying the
donkey. You will recall what happened to
him, or possibly the public is more interested
in the fate of the donkey. For they are little
donkeys, these pupils of ours. You may
attempt to disguise the fact by calling them
little cherubs and angels, but the teacher
sees the ears peeping up through the halo.
And the task of donkey-leading, under the
observation and advice of others, should
not be the sole work of a strong man;
therefore, very properly in the scheme of
the universe, it isn't. As for the women
who are forced to continue such tasks,
who hate them, and are ashamed of them,
you may pity them, which is one of the
reasons of their shame — but we can tell
you, we who know, that the children most
need your pity.
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
FIRST ARTICLE
WHAT WE MUST DO TO BE FED
RISING PRICES OF BREAD AND A FOOD SHORTAGE ALREADY BEGUN
IN A LAND OF PLENTY — THE WAY TO FEED OUR COMING MILLIONS
BY
JAMES J. HILL
[Mr. Hill, builder of the Northwest in particular and the foremost practical
master of the large problems of our progress, will write in subsequent articles on
The Development of the Northwest; on Combinations : What They Have
Done and Their Proper Supervision; on The Asiatic Trade and how we
might have it, but have failed because of our unbusinesslike Government; on
Transportation; and on other subjects of fundamental importance — a series of
articles that indicate the great highways of the progress of our country and
the future of our people. — The Editors.]
LAND without population is a wilder-
ness, and population without land
is a mob. The United States has
many social, political, and economic questions,
some old, some new, to settle in the near future;
but none so fundamental as the true relation of
the land to the national life. The first act in
the progress of any civilization is to provide
homes for those who desire to sit under their
own vine and fig-tree.
A prosperous agricultural interest is to a
nation what good digestion is to a man. The
farm is the basis of all industry. The soil is
the only resource that renews itself continually
after having produced value. I do not wish
to belittle the importance of manufacture or
its relative value in general growth. But for
many years this country has made the mistake
of unduly assisting manufacture, commerce,
and other activities that centre in cities, at
the expense of the farm. The result is a
neglected system of agriculture and the
decline of the farming interest. But all
these other activities are founded upon the
agricultural growth of the nation and must
continue to depend upon it. Every manu-
facturer, every merchant, every business man
and every good citizen is deeply interested
in maintaining the growth and develop-
ment of our agricultural resources.
It is strange that almost all countries, includ-
ing our own, should, until taught by approach-
ing misfortune, fail to realize the primary and
indispensable place of agriculture in sound
national development. Probably, as both
industry and society grow more complex, we
lose sight of their plain connection with the
soil, just as some of the most baffling diseases
with which modern medical science has to
deal originate in violations of the simplest and
most ancient laws of health. At any rate,
it is but recently that there has been revived
somewhat in this country a sense of the
dependence of all progress, of national
prosperity and individual existence upon
the land and its proper care. We do not
even yet feel the force of this old law as
we should and must. Some other peoples,
equally intelligent, appear to have almost
lost sight of it, although accepting it heartily
in earlier ages, when there were fewer great
interests to distract attention and confuse
judgment.
One hundred and fifty years ago, Dr. Samuel
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12228
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
THE AMERICAN WAY. HARVESTING BY MACHINERY IN DAKOTA
Our use of improved machinery enables us to cultivate great areas with comparatively little labor, but it does not
of itself increase the yield per acre
Johnson, one of the closest observers and most
philosophic thinkers of the English race up to
his time, wrote these words:
" Of nations, as of individuals, the first blessing
is independence. Neither the man nor the people
can be happy to whom any human power can
deny the necessaries or conveniences of life.
There is no way of living without the need of
foreign assistance but by the product of our own
land, improved by our own labor. Every other
source of plenty is perishable or casual."
Comparing other leading national interests
with this, he said:
"Trade and manufactures must be confessed
often to enrich countries . . . but trade
and manufacture, however profitable, must yield
to the cultivation of lands in usefulness and
dignity. . . . Mines are generally considered
as the great source of wealth, and superficial
observers have thought the provision of great
quantities of precious metals the first national
happiness. But Europe has long seen, with
A WHEAT-HARVESTING OUTFIT IN CALIFORNIA
Including headers, header-beds, thresher and "grub-house"
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12231
THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE — A SCIENTIFIC FARM
A farm on which different crops are grown in rotation and on which the stock furnishes the fertilizer. "To raise
the productivity of our soil 50 per cent, would be an increase greater in value than our entire foreign trade"
wonder and contempt, the poverty of Spain, who
thought himself exempted from the labor of
tilling the ground, by the conquest of Peru, with
its veins of silver. Time, however, has taught
even this obstinate and haughty nation that
without agriculture they may, indeed, be the
transmitters of money, but can never be the
possessors. . . . Agriculture alone can sup-
port us without the help of others, in a certain
plenty and genuine dignity. Whatever we buy
from without, the sellers may refuse; whatever
we sell, manufactured by art, the purchasers
may reject; but while our ground is covered
with corn and cattle, we can want nothing;
and if imagination should grow sick of native
plenty, and call for delicacies or embellish-
ments from other countries, there is nothing
which corn and cattle will not purchase. . . .
This, therefore, is the great art, which every
government ought to protect, every proprietor
of lands to practise, and every inquirer into
nature to improve.,,
WHY OUR AVERAGE WHEAT YIELD IS ONLY 14 BUSHELS AN ACRE
Our population exclusive of Alaska and our island dependencies was 25.6 per square mile in 1900. When it reaches
200,000,000, or about 67.3 per square mile, this kind of farming will not feed the people
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12238
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
A CROP ROTATION YIELDING $244 AN ACRE AND ENRICHING THE SOIL
I. Tobacco (grown with special fertilizer) worth $154 an acre on an old farm in Virginia
A CROP ROTATION YIELDING $244 AN ACRE AND ENRICHING THE SOIL
II. Followed on the same land by wheat (without fertilizer), which yielded 21; bushels an acre worth about $30
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12239
These are great truths set in great words. If
Dr. Johnson could re-visit his country to-day,
he would find his argument vindicated and his
vision justified by an alignment of industries
so uneven and a balance so poorly maintained
that business in the streets* of its cities is
impeded by processions of gaunt men shouting
in wretched concert, "We want work! We
want work!" He would find its legislators
trying to alleviate symptoms by socialistic
nostrums, instead of striking at the disease
itself. He would find even its industrial
tific industrial intelligence and systematic
management.
OUR TIME OF ECONOMIC TRIAL
In view of such contrasts it is most impor-
tant that our own country should realize the
situation and take thought for its own future.
When the United States shall have from
150,000,000 to 200,000,000 people, they must
be employed; they must earn a living. How
will their occupations and products stand in
relation to one another? Will there be mutual
A CROP ROTATION YIELDING $244 AN ACRE AND ENRICHING THE SOIL
III. Succeeded by clover (fertilized by lime and nitrate of soda) which yielded 5 tons of hay per acre, worth $60.
After yielding three crops, with a total valuation of $244 per acre, the land was richer than before
supremacy in many directions, once based upon
the prosperity of the small farmer, passing
away or jeopardized. In the west of England,
which was a great centre of broadcloth manu-
facturing and of the weaving of other woolen
goods, the output is less than a quarter of
what it was twenty-five years ago. Germany
is taking the cutlery trade of Sheffield. The
German people, who have cared jealously for
their farming industry at the same time that
they were learning economy and efficiency in
all other forms of production, to-day lead the
world, or any period in its history, in scien-
internal support, or mutual destruction and
decay? Who will employ these millions?
Who will buy the gtiods they produce? In
what shape will they be to meet the competition
that England faces to-day ? Hosts of idle men
in Great Britain ask for the opportunity to
win bread by work, and there is nothing for
them but the dole of charity. Wfe must avoid
for all time that extremity.
With our magnificent areas and the relative
sparseness of our population as compared with
the more densely peopled countries of the Old
World, the time of economic trial should be a
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12240
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
long way off for us. With greater wisdom
than we have exercised in the past it may
never come. But we must preserve jealously
the right and the possibility of free access to
the soil, out of which grow not only all those
things that make happy the heart of man and
comfort his body, but those virtues by which
only a nation can endure, and those influences
that strengthen the soul. This is the safe-
guard not only of national wealth but of national
character. The fertile fields of this country are
its real gold mines, from which it will gather a
For the first time in the history of this country,
thousands of farmers from states like Iowa,
Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Minnesota are seeking homes in the Canadian
Northwest, owing to the cheap lands offered
there and the difficulty of securing such lands
in the United States. Toward saving a supply
for the future something is now being done.
We are at least saving at the spigot, though
we have not quit wasting at the bung. While
we are spending great sums to transform worth-
less lands into orchards and gardens by the work
Copyright, 1909, by Underwood & Underwood
THRESHING IN FRANCE
Where the land is well utilized and labor wasted — the opposite of the American system. To utilize both land and
labor well is the only way of feeding our future millions
richer yield than the deposits of Alaska or South
Africa or any other land can furnish. These are
the true national inheritance. We must treas-
ure what is left of them. Ever since the first
settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock,
the United States has had an unlimited domain
where men might find homes. Now it is all
fairly occupied. Fifty-two years ago, a hundred
miles from Chicago there was an unoccupied
prairie. Now the land from the Mississippi
Valley to the Pacific is opened up and popu-
lated, and the wave of emigration is turning
back and filling the places that were passed over.
of the Reclamation Service, we still retain as to
other areas the land-laws under which for so
many years the great heritage of the people has
been passing so largely into unworthy hands.
THE GREATEST LESSON OF HISTORY
For the sake of our national future, for the
sake of the coming millions who will be helpless
unless each can be furnished with a piece of
tillable land as a defense against misfortune,
we should see that the speculative abuses which
these laws have fosteredvare brought to an end.
It should not be possible to obtain public land
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Copyright by Underwood Sc Underwood
"THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD" NEAR CALAIS, FRANCE
A typical French grain field, averaging about 20 bushels of wheat to the acre. Chiefly from its agricultural wealth,
France paid a $1,000,000,000 war indemnity to Germany and now supports 189.5 people per square mile
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12243
of any kind anywhere in the United States
henceforth except after complying with all the
terms of the homestead law. I cannot urge too
strongly upon every man who wishes his
country well and who desires all to be prosper-
ous in order that he may prosper with them,
the importance and growing necessity of taking
such care of our public domain as shall preserve
the remnant of it for the use of generations
yet unborn.
Such close and careful cultivation as will
yield the highest profit per acre can best be
given to land when it is cultivated in compara-
tively small farms. The greater the number
of prosperous farmers, the greater will be the
prosperity of every business man. It takes
more labor to earn the same profit from a
tract too large to be tilled thoroughly. Ten
farmers, each cultivating from forty to one
hundred and sixty acres at the outside, with the
most approved methods, supplemented where
necessary by irrigation, can each earn a profit
equal to that taken from two or three times the
same area by slovenly tillage. Ten farmers
instead of one increase the aggregate volume
of trade with the merchants of the community
and add in the same ratio to the general
prosperity.
Following unconsciously this laW, many of
the bonanza wheat farms of earlier days have
been or are being broken up into smaller hold-
ings. It is certain that in every state farm
lands will ultimately be divided and sub-
divided until each farmer has only as much as
will yield him an ample reward for his labor and
enable him to support his family in comfort.
Our agriculture will take a place midway
between the miniature garden-farms of Japan
and the vast estates of countries that still
support a landed gentry. It is far better that
it should be so. The farm life of the future will
have many advantages — some of them already
beginning to be realized — over the isolation
of an earlier day; because the multiplication of
smaller farms has begun to bring good roads,
schools, near neighbors, farm telephones,
churches, libraries, improved mail facilities,
and a social environment which is impossible
where farms are so big that homes are far
removed from one another.
Including Alaska, this country has about the
same area as Europe. It has a little more than
one-fifth as much population. With a trifle
more than 5 per cent, of the population of the
world, we are producing 43 per cent, of the
world's supply of wheat, corn and oats. We
raise more than 70 per cent of the world's
cotton. All political economy that is not
mere empty theory rests upon the ratio of
population to land area, the abundance and
value of the products of the soil, and the proper
balance and inter-relation of different indus-
tries. We have been busy as a nation helping
the so-called industrial interests of the country
— in fact, everybodyexcept the man on the farm.
But when we have as many people to the
square mile as Europe has now, we will know
the economic troubles of Europe. Our task
will be to increase correspondingly the volume
of the earth's product When we get down to
business and take stock of those national
affairs in which we are vitally concerned as
workers and home-builders, as citizens and as
fathers of the children who are to make our
future, we find that the main thing is the utili-
zation and conservation of the soil and the
resources drawn from it This interest must
more and more take precedence of all others.
The man must be encouraged to go to the
farm. The man on the farm must be con-
sidered first in all our policies, because he is
the keystone of the national arch. When he
has produced the share of natural wealth that
corresponds to his best effort, he must be able
to find a purchaser at prices that will enable
him to live in comfort and enjoy at least a
moderate degree of prosperity. This has
always been the final test of every country and
every civilization; and it will no more change
than the seasons are likely to reverse the order
of their succession.
History makes all this a twice-told tale.
As far back as we know anything about civil-
ization, the cultivation of the soil has been the
first and most important industry in any thriv-
ing state. It will always be. Herodotus, the
very father of history itself, tells the story of
the human race in the valley of the Euphrates.
He says that with poor cultivation those who
tilled the soil there got a yield of fifty-fold, with
fair cultivation one hundred-fold, and with
good cultivation two hundred-fold. That was
the garden of the world in its day. Its great
cities, Babylon and Nineveh, where are they?
Piles of desert sand mark where they stood.
In place of the millions that over-ran the world
there are a few wandering Arabs feeding some
half-starved sheep and goats. The Promised
Land — the Land of Canaan itself — to which
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12244
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
WHERE THE WHEAT OF
In 1908 the United States grew 20.89 P*1" cent., Russia 17.9 per cent., and France 9.7 per cent. For ten years prior
acre, and Russia last with 9.3 bushels per acre. The
the Children of Israel were brought up from
Egypt, what is it now? A land overflowing
with milk and honey ? To-day it has neither
milk nor honey. It is a barren waste of desert,
peopled by scattered robber bands. A pro-
vision of Providence fertilized the soil of the
valley of the Nile by overflowing it every year.
From the earliest records that history gives,
Egypt has been a land of remarkable crops;
and to-day the land thus fertilized by over-
flow is yielding more abundantly than ever.
It is made clear by every process of logic and
by the proof of historic fact that the wealth of
a nation, the character of its people, the quality
and permanence of its institutions are all
dependent upon a sound and sufficient agri-
cultural foundation. Not armies or navies
or commerce or diversity of manufacture or
anything other than the farm is the anchor
which will hold through the storms of time
that sweep all else away.
Our agricultural population will compare
favorably with any in the world; but it must
be taught to honor its occupation and to make
that occupation worthy of honor.
Further on I deal with the substitution of
new methods of tillage for old, by which the
average crop return of the country might
be doubled and nearly eight billion dollars
be added annually to the nation's wealth.
As they learn how this may be done, the
farmers of the nation will realize more fully
the dignity, the independence, and the com-
fort of their calling. Their children will un-
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12245
WHEAT.
AITERA6E ANNUAL PRODUCTION IN COUNTRIES UNfJBf STATES DEmffMENT OF AGRICULTURE
FROM WHICH DATA ARE OBTAINABLE. BUREAU OF STATISTICS. <
06URES Ml COUNTRIES REPRESENT PRODUCTION
IN MILLIONS OF BUSHELS.
IN BUSHELS.
* i 'AVERAGE FOR 1904-1908 mcwsive)
Courtesy of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics
THE WORLD IS GROWN
to 1907, England had the highest average yield per acre, 32.6 bushels; Germany came next with 28.4 bushels per
United States averaged 13.9 bushels to the acre
derstand that the farm is not a prison from
which they should escape at the first oppor-
tunity, recalling its surroundings only with
aversion or contempt, but the real bulwark
of liberty and the home of happiness. There
can be no greater aid toward the maintenance
of a prosperous, free, and enlightened nation
than the inculcation of the precept, "Keep
the children on the farm."
A FARM SCHOOL FOR EVERY FARMING COUNTY
This country has from the beginning estab-
lished and maintained a common school system
on the sound principle that education is essen-
tial to a right discharge of the duties of citizen-
ship. Another element must be introduced
into the educational system. To direct the
minds of the young to work upon the land as
an honorable and desirable career, and to pre-
pare for them work when they return there by
suitable instruction, is to promote good citi-
zenship and national security. To raise the
productivity of our soil 50 per cent, would
be an increase greater in value than the entire
volume of our foreign trade. These results
can be brought about only by a general under-
standing and practice of agriculture as modern
science and experiment work explain it; by
such instruction as we now give in our tech-
nical schools and institutes for the trades. Any-
one who has studied the growth and decline
of nations and would read our own industrial
future must be convinced that instruction in
farm economy and management should become
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
an indispensable part of the educational work
of this country.
In addition to all that those of our schools
where farming is taught are doing, and all that
ought to be done, there should be speedier and
more direct work for the immediate improve-
ment of the agricultural interest The older
generation, and those of the new who have
not been adequately taught, should have abun-
dant object lessons.
If I could have my way, I should build a
couple of warships a year less. Perhaps one
would do. I would take that $5,000,000 or
$6,000,000 a year and start at least one thou-
sand agricultural schools in the United States
at $5,000 a year each, in the shape of model
farms. This model farm would be simply a
tract of land conforming in size, soil treatment,
crop selection and rotation, and methods of
cultivation to modern agricultural methods.
Its purpose would be to furnish to all its neigh-
borhood a working model for common instruc-
tion. Cultivating, perhaps, from forty to sixty
acres, it could exhibit on that area the advan-
tages of thorough tillage which the small farm
makes possible; of seed specially chosen and
tested by experiment at agricultural college
farms; of proper fertilization, stock raising,
alternation of crops and the whole scientific
and improved system of cultivation, seeding,
harvesting, and marketing. The farmers of
a county could see, must see, as they passed its
borders how their daily labors might bring
increased and improved results. The example
could not fail to impress itself upon an industry
becoming each year more conscious of its defects
and its needs. As fast as it was followed, it
would improve farm conditions, make this a
form of enterprise more attractive to the young
and the intelligent, and add enormously to the
volume of farm products which constitutes our
enduring national wealth.
The experiment would cost but a fraction of
the amount sometimes given freely for more
questionable purposes. It would require a
small amount of land, all told, to place a model
farm in every agricultural county in the United
States. There should be a trained man to
each farm of, say, eighty acres; and a general
superintendent, a thoroughly trained agricul-
turist, to manage three or four counties and
visit the different farms. All such farms in a
state might be put under the general super-
vision of the agricultural college in that state,
as a part of its experimental work. Results
reached by this arrangement would have the
conclusiveness of a demonstration in science.
Every crop that could be or ought to be raised
should be experimented with, not at some dis-
tant spot seldom visited, but right at home on
the farm. I would bring the model farm into
every agricultural county; and if any farmer
was in doubt, he could visit it, see with his own
eyes, and find out what he ought to have done
and what he could do next time. It would do
for the farming population what the technical
school does for the intending artisan, and the
schools of special training for those who enter
the professions. Side by side with the common
school it would work for intelligence, for
progress, for the welfare of the country in a
moral as well as a material aspect.
Perhaps even this is not all that should be
done; and perhaps we need to move even more
quickly and effectively. Formerly the decreased
productivity of our older lands, due to poor
cultivation, was more than made good by large
yields from the immense acreage of new land
continually being brought under the plow.
This cannot be true in the future. If the
average yield per acre continues to fall as it
has in the past, the total national product
will soon begin to decline. The additional
demand of a constantly increasing population,
added to this deficit, compels us to consider
at once the only practical remedy — the raising
of the product of the land per acre by methods
already broadly outlined and to be considered
in more detail in the following chapter.
We cannot wait for the work of the agricul-
tural colleges, because the emergency is one
not for the next generation, but for this. In-
struction in improved methods should be car-
ried to the farmer; just as he is, upon his own
farm. The state might profitably employ
a considerable number of men educated in
practical agriculture; supply them with seed
selected for quality; send them out to the farms
and have each farmer put in a few acres, under
the direction of its agents, sowing and tilling
these according to their instructions. The
great increase in both the quantity and the
quality of the yield would be a convincing
education.
THE POLITICAL FORTUNES OF NATIONS
National wealth and all the activities
concerned in its production and distribution
depend, we see, upon the soil. So do the
political fortunes of nations. In 1889, seventy
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years after Great Britain started on its era of
expansion, the oldest banking house in Great
Britain failed. Who came to its aid ? France,
after paying a thousand millions war indemnity
to Germany, came to the relief of Great
Britain; and to-day, if any power in Europe
thinks of engaging in war, it first sounds care-
fully the opinion and disposition of the bankers
of France. Again it is interesting to refer to
a judgment a century and a half old. In
the paper before referred to, Dr. Johnson
makes this shrewd comparison between France
and Spain:
"It is well known to those who have examined
the state of other countries that the vineyards of
France are more than equivalent to the mines
(gold and silver) of America. . . . The
advantage is indeed always rising on the side of
France, who will certainly have wines when Spain
by a thousand natural or accidental causes may
want silver."
Spain is to-day a beggar among the nations.
To the fruit of the vine France has added a
thousand other products of its fertile fields
and gardens; but still its main reliance is
upon agricultural wealth. It has made it
the great creditor of the world. Comparative
history points to agriculture and its varied
fortunes as a powerful producing cause in the
rise and fall of nations.
II
IT is in order now to consider more practi-
cally in detail just what constitutes a
system of tillage scientific in its methods
and satisfactory in its results; to set forth how
far and why we have fallen short of attain-
' ing in the past, and what the failures and suc-
cesses of ourselves and others have to teach us
for the future.
s We have begun to realize only recently that
farming is to a great extent an exact science.
The man no longer deserves the name of far-
mer who conceives of his industry as a scratch-
ing of the earth, a hit-or-miss scattering of seed,
and a harvesting of such yield as soil and
weather may permit. That is not farming, but
a game of chance. After an army has been
raised and before it can enter upon any cam-
paign, the first consideration is to provide its
food. If that is a failure, the bravest and best-
organized force will melt away in a week. Our
national supply of food, in like manner, is
fundamental to the organization of our social
life and to the progress of all our industries.
HOW SHALL WE FEED OUR POPULATION IN I950 ?
It is as well assured as any future event can
be that the population of the United States
will be 200,000,000 by about the middle of the
present century, or in less than fifty years. It
may come a few years later or a few years
earlier, according to circumstances, for good
times lift both the immigration total and the
domestic birth rate, while depression decreases
both, but this is immaterial. Millions of per-
sons now living will see the 200,000,000 people
here; and the first question is, How are they to
be fed? There will be many grave problems
accompanying such a human growth, but
we may for the time being dismiss all the others
until we have considered the primary one of
the bare maintenance of life. The food prob-
lem itself has numerous collateral issues, but
for the sake of simplicity we may here con-
sider only the matter of bread. Where and
how are we to obtain loaves enough to feed
these coming millions ?
The average yearly consumption of wheat per
capita varies considerably with seasons and
prices, but it rises steadily with our constantly
advancing standard of comfort For the last
three years it has been either slightly under or
slightly over seven bushels for bread and seed.
Suppose that it is six and one-half bushels per
capita, which is certainly within the mark. It
will then require, unless we are to fall to a
lower scale of living, a total product of
1,300,000,000 bushels of wheat for our bread
supply, if we do not export any. From
1880 to 1906 inclusive, our crop averaged
521,738,000 bushels annually. Twice only
in our history have we exceeded 700,000,000
bushels. It is fair to say that 650,000,000
bushels is our present average capacity. Of
course, with an increasing population may come
a somewhat increased total production, though
it will not advance as rapidly as many suppose.
We grew 504,185,470 bushels in 1882, when
our population was a little over 52,000,000,
and 634,087,000 bushels in 1907, twenty-five
years later. The increase in wheat yield,
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during these years, when much of the new land
of the West was being brought under the plow,
was a little over 25 per cent., while population
increased 33,000,000, or over 63 per cent.
Obviously, the supply and demand of bread will
not keep pace through the working of any law
of nature.
Moreover, possible increase of wheat pro-
duction by increasing acreage is limited. We
have no longer a great area of free public lands.
Some wheat will be grown on reclaimed arid
land, though this is mostly devoted to the raising
of fruit and fodder plants. Some lands will be
drained, and there are a few acres of public
land left on which wheat may be raised. But
a denser population makes new demands upon
the soil; and it is more likely on the whole that
wheat acreage will be reduced, to raise all the
other food supplies consumed by 200,000,000
people, than that it will be enlarged. Nothing
but a material rise in price could accomplish
this; and we may, perhaps, assume that a steady
and certain price of one dollar or one dollar and
a half per bushel would raise, with better work
on the farm, our total annual wheat product
to 900,000,000 bushels, which would be 50 per
cent more than the present average. This is
the extreme limit of probability. The coun-
try could do no more, with present methods
of culture, unless it took land just as necessary
for other purposes and devoted it to wheat
raising. We are left, practically, with a short-
age of 400,000,000 bushels in our wheat supply,
even if we consume every grain we raise. This
amount we should have to procure from some
other source. Where are we to get it, and how
is it to be paid for?
Where in the whole world is there a surplus
of 400,000,000 bushels? We ourselves fur-
nished the great surplus in the past. Canada
is now rapidly approaching us, and so is
Argentina. But with the present rate of
immigration into the Canadian Northwest,
and with a rapid increase of population
throughout the Dominion, it will not be long
before they need 100,000,000 bushels for their
own use. They may be able to sell 150,000,000
or even 200,000,000 bushels, and they are close
to our markets, but all they could give would
not furnish us the 400,000,000 bushels we must
have. Manchuria will eventually produce
much wheat, but its development will prob-
ably no more than supply, if it does not fall
below, the increasing demand of China and
Japan. Russia and Argentina and Australia
together are scarcely keeping up with the
world's present necessities. Wheat bread and
a high civilization go together; and as labor
conditions everywhere improve, more and more
people who once lived on black bread or rice
will want the white loaf. A supply to meet the
coming new demand is nowhere in sight.
THE INEVITABLY INCREASING COST OF BREAD
Because of these facts I have said many
times in different articles and addresses for
years past that wheat must advance; and
that a price of over rather than under one
dollar per bushel might be expected hereafter.
Market quotations for months past under all
sorts of conditions verify the prediction.
Without any artificial support, cash wheat in
New York reached $1.50 early in June, 1909.
The latest statistics completely confirm the
view that the condition which the country faces
is permanent. Lest the comparison already
made, covering two years a quarter of a
century apart, should not have selected rep-
resentative years, take two five-year periods
instead. This will give a fair measure of the
average producing capacity of our wheat
acreage and its insufficiency for growing
demands. The average wheat crop of the
United States during the four years 1880-84
was 463,973,317. For the five years 1904-08
it was 655,865,795 bushels. The increase is
41 per cent. But the population of the United
States was 50,155,783 in 1880, and the official
estimate for 1908 is 87,189,392, an increase of
74 per cent. Home demand has grown 80
per cent, faster than supply.
The same rapid transition appears in the
records of our exports of breadstuffs. Our
average exports of wheat and wheat flour,
reckoning four and one-half bushels to the
barrel, were 149,572,716 bushels for the five
years 1880-84, and 114,438,724 bushels for
the years 1904-08. For the former period
the average amount retained for home con-
sumption was 301,598,927 bushels, and for
the latter, 542,180,037. The decrease in
exports for the quarter century is 24 per cent,
and the increase in the amount held for our
own needs is -8o per cent. These figures
coincide with and confirm one another. They
lend probability to the suggestion that in
another ten years the United States may
have become a wheat-importing nation.
The price of wheat has responded, natu-
rally and inevitably, to these price-making
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conditions. As long as we have a large surplus
for export, the price will be determined by
the figure at which this can be disposed of
abroad — will be fixed in the markets of the
world by the adjustment of the world's sup-
ply and demand. So prices in all the markets
of this country in the past have varied with
the cable quotations from Liverpool. But
the moment our surplus disappears or becomes
inconsiderable, our own requirements will
have more influence upon prices, which will be
made more and more in our own markets.
We can see the change toward this, just as
we can see the decline of exports and the
increase in home consumption.
HOW CAN WE PAY FOR ENOUGH WHEAT?
When the speculative element in recent
wheat prices is allowed for, there remains a
considerable margin of permanent advance.
The collapse of all artificial support leaves
this unchanged. The same economic forces
which have been at work for the last twenty-
five years are still operative. They confirm
the advice given to farmers during that time
and throw new light upon markets and prices.
The improvement of farm methods will hence-
forth feel both the goad of our growing neces-
sities and the stimulus of prices kept per-
manently higher by conditions so inseparably
connected with the future growth of the
United States that no probable change in
world conditions could alter them.
With this strong light of fact upon the
subject, if it be granted now that the additional
400,000,000 bushels of wheat which will be
required to feed the country a little later on
will be supplied from some now undetermined
source, wherewith shall the bill be paid? It is
not a rash statement that if we have to step into
the markets of the world and buy 400,000,000
bushels, we should have to pay $1.50 per
bushel and perhaps more. Where is the
money to come from? In the year ending
June 30, 1908, we exported wheat and wheat
flour to the value, in round numbers, of
$164,000,000. That will be cut off. So we
must find over $700,000,000 in all to pay our
bread bill. That is one-third of the value
of our entire exports in the year 1908.
We cannot provide for this vast annual
payment by increasing exports. Already the
products of the soil, the minerals and oils
taken from the earth, and such raw materials
as leather and lumber, drawn immediately
from earth's products, constitute two-thirds
of all our exports. Our whole export of
manufactured goods other than products of
the farm amounted to $480,000,000 in 1907.
For the most part we are only artificial com-
petitors in the outside markets of the world,
and would have to withdraw from the foreign
field if we were obliged to depend solely upon
our own industrial merits. Our factories could
not keep open and pay the current scale of
wages if they received for their total product
the prices now charged the foreign purchaser.
We shall never be able to make a much better
showing than we do now in international
commerce. We shall be fortunate, rather,
if we hold our own. The soil alone renews
itself, endures patiently, and is "capable of
yielding increasing rewards to industry as
agriculture conforms more closely to the
principles that science and experience have
established. The products of the earth and
the population of the earth may increase
together, if we are wise, so that the one will
support the other. And this is the sole escape
from the melancholy conclusion to which
Malthus was forced long ago because, in his
time, the possibilities of modern soil culture
were not understood.
But our need is more urgent than has yet
been made apparent. I have said that im-
provement in agriculture could not afford to
wait upon the slow work of the agricultural col-
leges and the rise of a new generation. We
must make haste. Let us look a little more
in detail at the twenty-five years between 1882
and 1907 and some impressive facts will appear.
The net increase in wheat acreage in that
time was 8,143,806 acres, and in production
129,901,530 bushels. This rise was wholly
due to the opening of new Western lands, with-
out which both acreage and production would
have declined heavily. The wheat acreage
of three rich, representative agricultural states
in the older section of the country compares
as follows:
DECREASED WHEAT ACREAGE IN OLDER STATES
States Acres in 1882 Acres in 1907
New York .... 772,400 416,000
Ohio 2,876,000 1,882,000
Michigan .... 1,985,000 878,000
On the other hand there were enormous
additions of new and fertile land in the West
and Southwest. The following table of wheat
acreage in more recently occupied territory
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shows how we have been able to add
130,000,000 bushels to our product, while old
lands were being withdrawn from wheat grow-
ing and the yield per acre of the best lands
was falling:
INCREASED WHEAT ACREAGE IN NEWER STATES
States Acres in 1882 Acres in 1907
Minnesota . . .
2,S47,ooo
5,200,000
North and Sou th Dakota 7 20,000
8,413,000
Montana. . . .
42,812
139,000
Washington . . .
148,000
1,349,000
Kansas ....
1,573,000
5,959,000
Nebraska . . .
1,657,000
2,535,000
Oklahoma
959,000
Total .... 6,687,812 24,554,000
It is clear that we cannot make up in the
future for either decreasing acreage or declin-
ing productivity as we have in the past. And
there will be a big gap to fill. The total wheat
We have to provide for a contingency not dis-
tant from us by nearly a generation, but already
present. The food condition presses upon us
now. The shortage has begun. Witness the
great fall in wheat exports and the rise of prices.
For the first nine months of the fiscal year,
ending June 30, 1909, our export of wheat and
flour combined was but 103,251,200 bushels.
Such is the size of the national surplus in a
fair crop year. It must shrink more than
100,000,000 bushels for each three years here-
after. Obviously it is time to quit specula-
ting about what may occur even twenty or
thirty years hence, and begin to take thought
for the morrow. As far as our food supply is
concerned, right now the lean years have begun.
I have stated the national problem in terms
of wheat for the sake of clearness; its solution
admits of similar statement. The average
wheat yield per acre in the United States in
THE HOME DEMAND FOR WHEAT HAS GROWN 80 PER CENT. FASTER THAN THE SUPPLY
Growth of population
1880 to 1908 — increase
of 74 per cent.
Growth of the wheat
production 1880 to 1908
—increase of 41 per cent.
Population
87.189,39?
(estimated)
"&32T
664,609,000
busheb
1880
product of the three older states selected to
illustrate our farm tendency — New York,
Ohio, and Michigan — was 87,914,200 bushels
in 1882 and 50,605,000 bushels in 1907. It is
conservative to estimate the future falling off
in our wheat supply from similar causes at half
a bushel per acre per annum. Applied to our
present acreage of 45,000,000, this gives an
annual deficit of 22,500,000 bushels. But we
are also adding to our population about
2,000,000 each year by immigration and
natural increase, and these must be fed. At
six and a half bushels per capita — the low
average already used — they would consume
13,000,000 bushels. We must, therefore, pro-
vide from some source for an annual deficit of
more than 35,000,000 bushels.
A FOOD SHORTAGE ALREADY BEGUN
The startling feature of this changed aspect
of demand and supply is that it is immediate.
1008
1907 was 14 bushels. The average for the
last ten years is 13.88. That is, in 1907 it
required 45,211,000 acres to produce the
634,087,000 bushels that we raised. It is a
disgraceful record.
About a century ago this was the average pro-
duction per acre of Great Britain. After the
appointment of a Royal Commission and a cam-
paign for better methods of cultivation begun
over a hundred years ago,the fields of the United
Kingdom to-day, tilled for a thousand years,
in a climate whose excessive moisture is unfav-
orable to the wheat grower, yield over 32
bushels of wheat per acre. Germany, an agri-
cultural country almost from the time of
Tacitus, produces 27.6 bushels per acre. Sup-
pose that the United States produced 28
bushels, or double its present showing. That
would be nothing extraordinary in view of
what European countries have done with
inferior soils and less favorable climates. It
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would have added 634,000,000 bushels to our
product last year.
Here we perceive an answer to the question
that the future asks. Here we see how the
200,000,000 people of about the year 1950 are
to be fed. Here we see where the money will
come from for our national support. It must
be earned by and paid to the farmers of this
country. But that implies a kind of agriculture
differing greatly from that which now prevails.
OUR LESSENING YIELD PER ACRE
The disease of bad farming, from which
this country suffers, is a chronic complaint.
DECREASE IN THE PRODUCTION OF WHEAT PER
ACRE
Figures represent bushels
1899
1907
1899
1907
1899
1907
1899
1907
1899
1907
1899
1907
-|ai.a
New York
-fi7-3
-1 15 6
Indiana
IX4.4
|iS«
Minnesota
-4 '3
-|x4-4
North Dakota
-i»
Oklahoma
H*
-1 149
United States
-i'4
The following is an extract from a letter written
by Washington to Alexander Hamilton:
" It must be obvious to every man, who considers
the agriculture of this country (even in the most
improved parts of it), and compares the produce
of our lands with those of other countries, no ways
superior to them in natural fertility, how miserably
defective we are in the management of them; and
that if we do not fall on a better mode of treating
them, how ruinous it will prove to the landed
interests. iAges will not produce a systematic
change without public attention and encourage-
ment; put a few years more of increased sterility
will drive the inhabitants of the Adantic states
westwardly for support; whereas if they were
taught how to improve the old, instead of going
in pursuit of new and productive soils, they would
make those acres which now yield them scarcely
anything turn out beneficial to themselves."
Washington's foreboding has been justified.
A recent bulletin of the Federal Department
of Agriculture says:
"Wheat was produced quite successfully in
central New York for something like forty years.
During the latter part of that period the 'yields
began to decline, and at the end of another twenty
years they were so low that exclusive wheat-growing
became unprofitable. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Iowa have each in turn repeated the history of
New York.- The soils of these states were pro-
ductive in the beginning, and it required forty,
fifty, or sixty years for the single crop system to
materially reduce the yields."
The following table of the wheat production
of the forty counties of northern Illinois by
decades tells the story more forcibly than
words could express it:
DECREASING WHEAT YIELDS IN NORTHERN ILLINOIS
Year Bushels
1870 10,476,011
1880 7,122,963
1890 5,o73»o7<>
1900 ' 637,4So
Instead of preserving the fertility of their
lands, our farmers have gone in search of
new soils to be skinned, robbed, and abandoned
as soon as the old showed signs of exhaustion.
Now that we have reached the jumping-off
place, and there is no longer any "West"
to move on to, what have they left behind?
The average yield of wheat in New York
state only ten years ago was 21.2 bushels
per acre; in 1907 it was 17.3. But for con-
siderable tracts in the state which have been
carefully farmed from an early date, the
general average would be much lower. In
the same short time the average crop in
Indiana has fallen from 15.6 bushels per
acre to 14.4; in Minnesota from 15.8 to 13;
in North Dakota from 14.4 to 10; in Oklahoma
from 14.9 to 9; and in the entire United
States from 15.8 to 14. We cannot feed our
future population with our present methods.
We must improve; and years of scientific
investigation and practical experience have
demonstrated how it may be done.
GOOD SMALL-FARMING THE SOLUTION
There is scarcely a limit, at least none has
yet been reached by the most intensive cul-
tivation, to the value which an acre of ground
may be made to produce. Right methods of
farming, without which no agricultural country
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such as this can hope to remain prosperous,
or even to escape eventual poverty, are not
complicated and are within the reach of the
most modest means. They include a study
of soils and seeds, so as to adapt the one to
the other; a diversification of industry, includ-
ing the cultivation of different crops and the
raising of live stock; a careful rotation of
crops, so that the land will not be worn out
by successive years of single cropping; intel-
ligent fertilizing, by the system of rotation,
by cultivating leguminous plants and, above
all, by the economy and use of every particle
of fertilizing material from stock barns and
yards; a careful selection of grain used for
seed; and, first of all perhaps in importance,
the substitution of the small farm, thoroughly
tilled, for the large farm, with its weeds, its
neglected corners, its abused soil and its thin
product. This will make room for the new
population whose added product will help
to restore our place as an exporter of food-
stuffs. The fruit farmer, the truck farmer,
every cultivator of the soil who has specialized
his work, has learned the value of these simple
principles. The problem is, how to impress
it upon the thirty million or more such persons
who live on the land and till it.
The modern agricultural method is both a
money-maker and a labor-saver. The cost
of rent and production for continuous wheat
cropping averages $7.50 per acre. When,
therefore, the farmer obtains, as so many in
the Northwest do, a yield of eight or ten
bushels per acre, it just about meets, at average
farm prices, the cost of production; leaving
him either nothing at all for his year's toil, or
else a margin of debt.
For the same amount of labor, covering the
same time, but intelligently applied to a smaller
area, he might easily produce by improved
methods twenty bushels to the acre, leaving
him a profit of over $12 per acre. The not
unreasonable yield of twenty-eight bushels
would net him $20, which is 10 per cent, on a
valuation of $200 per acre for his land.
This gigantic waste, applying the same
measure to the production of the entire country,
is going on every year. If it can be stopped, the
saving would pay for building a Panama canal
every year; it would, in two years, more than
pay the estimated expense of improving every
available waterway in the United States; it
would save more money for the farmer than the
railroads could if they carried all his grain to
market free of charge. Let us set these simple
principles of the new method out again in
order:
First — The farmer must cultivate no more
land than he can till thoroughly. With less
labor he will get more results. Official statis-
tics show that the net profit from one crop of
twenty bushels of wheat to the acre is as great
as that from two of sixteen, after original cost
of production has been paid.
Second — There must be rotation of crops.
Ten years of single cropping will pretty nearly
wear out any but the richest soil. A proper
three or five-year rotation of crops actually
enriches the land.
Third — There must be soil renovation by
fertilizing; and the best fertilizer is that pro-
vided by nature herself — barnyard manure.
Every farmer can and should keep some
BUSHELS PER ACRE— AVERAGE OF LAST 10 YEARS
38.2 bushels
Great Britain
28 bushels
Germany
•
19.8 bushels
Francs
13JJ bushels
United States
cattle, sheep, and hogs on his place. It is not
in the nature of things that a man on a wheat
farm, working four or four and a half months
a year, can make as good a living for himself
and family, or that he will be as happy over it
as if he worked a reasonable portion of the whole
twelve months; as if he fed some cattle; as if
all his time were employed. The farmer and
his land cannot prosper until stock-raising
becomes an inseparable part of agriculture.
The natural increase of animals, the butter
and milk, the stock sent to market — all add
materially to the income of the farm. Still
more important is the fact that of all forage
fed to live stock at least one-third in cash value
remains on the land in the form of manure that
soon restores worn-out soil to fertility and keeps
good land from deteriorating. By this system
the farm may be made and kept a source of
perpetual wealth.
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Without difficulty, following approved agri-
cultural methods, the wheat average of
the United States can be raised from 13.8
bushels per acre for the last ten years to the
28 bushels produced by the inferior soil of
Germany, the 19.8 of France, or the 32.2 of the
United Kingdom, to say nothing of the
immensely greater yields than this of all
varieties of farm products in Belgium and the
Netherlands, on the Island of Jersey, and wher-
ever intensive farming has been followed.
Reports from the experimental farms of the
agricultural college in Montana show that
crops are obtained by summer fallowing from
two to four times as great as by continuous
cropping. The value of farm lands will rise in
proportion to the increase of the values pro-
duced. The total value of farm property with
improvements in the United States, given by
the census of 1900, shows, when divided by
the whole number of acres in farms, an average
value of a little over $20 per acre; when divided
by the number of improved acres only, the
average value is a trifle over $40. It would be
a simple matter to raise the market value of
farm property the country over to $100 an
acre by a system of careful, intelligent, diversi-
fied farming.
THE OBJECT-LESSON OF EUROPE
Other peoples have been quicker to learn this
than we. Denmark has an area of less than
16,000 square miles, a little less than one-fifth
that of Minnesota, and a population in 1906
of 2,605,268. Only 80 per cent, of her area
is productive, and her population is 167 per
square mile. Yet in 1906 she sent abroad over
$80,000,000 worth of her home product of
provisions and eggs. Great Britain bought
from her that year butter to the amount of
$48,000,000 and bacon worth over $21,000,000.
It is interesting in this connection to note that,
though her population is so dense, there were
in 1905 but 754 men and 69 women in her
penitentiaries.
The Netherlands has a still more closely
compacted population of 5,672,237, an area
of 12,648 square miles, or 448 per square mile.
The advantage of this is that it forces smaller
holdings and a more thorough tillage. The
average wheat yield in the Netherlands is
34.18 bushels as against our 14; she produces
an average of 53.1 bushels of oats per acre,
where we are satisfied with 23.7 bushels in
1907 and an average of less than 30 bushels
for the preceding ten years; her farmers gather
232 bushels of potatoes from every acre so
planted, while in this country, with soil capable
of fabulous yields, we averaged 95.4 bushels
in 1907 and a trifle less than 96 bushels for
the last six years. The difference between
95 bushels and 230 bushels, at 50 cents a bushel,
is over $60 per acre.
The value of our annual farm product is now
about eight billion dollars. It might easily
be doubled. When the forests are all cut down
and the mines are nothing but empty holes in
the ground, the farm lands of the country
will remain capable of renewing their bounty
forever. But they must have proper treat-
ment. To provide this, as a matter of self-
interest and of national safety, is the most
imperative present duty of our people.
Indolence, bad farming methods, greed,
and the idea that it needs no brains to
run a farm, have prevented agriculture from
taking its true place in the national life
and multiplying the value of both the soil and
its product They should not be proof longer
against the progress of new ideas. The armed
fleets of an enemy approaching our harbors
would be no more alarming than the relentless
advance of a day when we shall have neither
sufficient food nor the means to purchase it
for our population. The farmers of the nation
must save it in the future, just as they built
its greatness in the past.
The man who assumes to be the farmer's
friend or hold his interests dear will constitute
himself a missionary of the new dispensation.
It is an act of patriotic service to the country.
It is a contribution to the welfare of all
humanity. It will strengthen the pillars of a
government that must otherwise be endangered
by some popular upheaval when the land can
no longer sustain the population that its bosom
bears. Here lies the true secret of our anxious
interest in agricultural methods; because, in
the long run, they mean life or death to future
millions; who are no strangers or invaders,
but our own children's children, and who will
pass judgment upon us according to what we
have made of the world in which their lot is to
be cast.
[The next article (in the December World's Work) by Mr. Hill will be about the develop-
ment 0} the northwest, and this will be followed by others.]
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AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR IN ROME
THE WORK OF SIR MOSES EZEKIEL, A VIRGINIAN WHO HAS BEEN
KNIGHTED BY EUROPEAN MONARCHS IN RECOGNITION OF HIS GENIUS
BY
KATHARINE H. WRENSHALL
"About half -past eight yesterday morning His
Majesty [the King of Italy], accompanied by his
Adjutant-General Brusati and two other aides-
de-camp, made a lengthy visit to the studio of the
American Sculptor, Cav. Uflf. M. Ezekiel, in the
Piazza delle Terme.
"His Majesty was much interested in the works
of the valiant sculptor, and especially in the model
just recently completed of the statue of Napoleon
at St. Helena, the monument of Thomas Jeffer-
son, the statue of Stonewall Jackson, Christ in the
Tomb (made for the Chapel of the Consolation
in the Rue Goujon, Paris), and various other
statues and monuments.
"His Majesty remained some time in the lower
and upper studios, admiring the various works of
the artist, and congratulated the sculptor in glow-
ing terms upon his great and noble achievements."
The sculptor to whom this delicate com-
pliment was paid is one of a group of Ameri-
can artists whose genius has received greater
recognition abroad than in their native land.
As in the case of Mr. Elihu Vedder, this is
largely because Sir Moses Ezekiel has lived
in Rome for the greater part of his life.
Born in Virginia, in 1844, he was a student
of the Virginia Military Institute. Cadet
Ezekiel, at the outbreak of the Civil War, was
one of that youthful corps which volunteered
for service on the battlefield. With the other
survivors of the terrible fight at New Market,
he shared the honor accorded to the beard-
less boys when they were ordered to the famous
"intermediate ground" lying between the
city of Richmond andjthe Union troops then
advancing on the Southern capital. Here
young Ezekiel was captured, and he was
imprisoned in Castle Thunder. After his
release, he returned to the Virginia Military
Institute to complete his education, being
one of the ten young veterans who at the close
of the war reentered the Academy. He
graduated a year later.
During this year of quiet study, the young
cadet enjoyed the constant companionship of
General Robert E. Lee, accompanying him on
his daily rides, and having an unrestricted
entrde to the Lee home. To the General he
confided his great wish to go abroad to study,
and he was encouraged in his ambition to
devote his life to art; though difficulties were
many and opportunities few, his will con-
quered, and in 1870 he began his work in
Berlin.
No one but himself knows what the struggling
student endured in the four years that fol-
lowed, giving lessons in English that he might
eke out a bare existence, sculpturing and
studying night and day, that he might even-
tually succeed. His beautiful work found a
place mainly in public buildings and private
homes until public recognition came, in 1874.
The Royal Academy of Berlin in that year
awarded the "Roman Prize' ' to his remark-
able and mystical "Israel,, — its four figures
typifying the Christ, Jesse, Jerusalem, and
Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew. With the
modest stipendium accompanying the prize,
he turned his face southward and found a per-
manent home in Rome.
Seeking quarters where he could live as well
as chisel, he selected the studios in the ancient
Baths of Diocletian, partly on account of an
enforced economy, partly in the gratification
of a wish to live in one of the ruins. It is now
the busy centre of a well-ordered city, but it
was then only a wide and empty space crossed
by deserted roads leading past die vast and
solemn ruins. The lower studio, where Sir
Moses spends his working hours, is in an unal-
. tered part of the ancient buildings, the spring-
ing vaults rising to the height of some eighty
feet, all dim with age, showing softest tints of
brick and mortar, the former marble casing of
the walls having been replaced by time's en-
crustations. Here and there a plant grows
freshly green from the crannied wall; below,
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AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR IN ROME
the snowy casts and sculptures and rich
bronzes crowd each other, while in the
heart of the light pouring from the lofty
window a winged Victory has the exultant
power of the Samathrace.
Here he has lived and worked since the day
he landed in Rome, then only a friendless boy,
with little money, but within his soul the joy
and companionship of a great genius, accom-
panied by an unflinching determination.
FIRST AMERICAN RECOGNITION
His first commission after being awarded
the Roman Prize by the Royal Academy of
Berlin, came from America, and the subject
was "Religious Liberty." In handling this
theme, the youthful sculptor immediately
evidenced not only his originality of con-
ception, but what was of equal importance,
his courage to depart from the accepted
trend of thought and work. The strength
of the new country, her power to protect,
her will to do so, is skilfully suggested by
the principal figure of the group, that of
"America." A generous-mouthed, open-eyed,
calm-browed goddess wearing mail — for she
remembers that there has been need of armor,
but over it draws the robe of peace — with
hand extended palm downward, wards off
danger or interference with the child stand-
ing beside her, the "Religious Liberty" (or
Faith) of the group. With the flame of faith
burning in his upraised hand, his head thrown
back, the child gazes confidently at the
skies, his bare foot on the tail of the serpent
of Intolerance, while on the other side of
"America" the eagle holds the head of the
serpent in its claws.
The unusual and powerful treatment of the
subject aroused general notice. Had it come
from the chisel of a mature man, it would have
attracted attention, but the sculptor was
scarcely more than a boy. When the group
was exhibited in Rome, it was pronounced
by some as "the most important work of the
age." American critics were equally favor-
able when it reached its destination, the Cen-
tennial Exposition of Philadelphia. Looking
at the cast in the Roman studio to-day, one
traces distinctly in this rendering of a great
principle the general lines since followed and
extended by the sculptor; a poetic and orig-
inal idealization of theme, a restrained strength
of execution, and a light and airy fancy enab-
ling him to seize the possibilities of sym-
bolism, though keeping the symbolism sub-
ordinate, as an accessory. In his treatment
of patriotic themes it is less restrained, as in
the monument to Thomas Jefferson, the
original of which was placed in front of
the court-house in Louisville, in 1900.
A YOUTHFUL THOMAS JEFFERSON
A replica of this splendidly conceived work
is to be placed at the front entrance to the
University of Virginia, where the figure of
Jefferson will be seen to advantage, and the
graceful power of the supporting pediment,
the Liberty Bell, will not be lost. In this pedi-
ment, the sculptor's symbolism is majestic:
the four spirits of "Liberty," "Brotherhood,"
"Justice," and "Equality," born on the first
stroke of the bell in response to the immor-
tal words of Jefferson, are forever free from
their bronze prison. The symbolism of the
second detail, that of "Equality," requires
some explanation, the torn document in the
spirit's hands being the "Laws of Primo-
geniture," and the scroll under its feet the
Stamp Act
The most striking features of the figure of
Jefferson, which crowns the Liberty Bell, is
the youthful contour of the face and the poise
of the vigorous, well-knit body, realistic in its
easy, swaying grace, the sculptor emphasiz-
ing not only the patriot's intellect and intrepid-
ity, but his youth — for Jefferson was only
thirty-three when the ink dried on his signa-
ture to the Declaration of Independence.
Sir Moses recently remarked, in reference
to this figure: "Jefferson was a young man,
able to stand unsupported by chair, cane, or
column; I have shown him as such. Many
have made him middle-aged, with a large
Declaration in his hand, though, as a matter of
fact, the Declaration was written on a small
sheet, which I have measured."
The development of patriotic themes is a
specialty of this sculptor. On the parade
ground of the Virginia Military Institute, at
Lexington, is the colossal bronze of "Vir-
ginia Mourning her Dead," and in the John-
son's Island Cemetery is the heroic bronze of
the "Southern Soldier"; and at the present
time, together with the Jefferson for the
University of Virginia and other important
work, Sir Moses is finishing a bronze
statue of Stonewall Jackson for the City of
Charlestown, West Virginia.
It is probable that in sounding this great-
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AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR IN ROME
12257
est and best chord of human nature, patriot-
ism, Sir Moses Ezekiel touches and holds his
highest level.
In the statues of "Titian" and "Leonardo
da Vinci," the development of the details of
the ornate and heavy dress of the mediaeval
period presented difficulties to the sculptor,
perhaps more satisfactorily overcome in the
"Titian" than in the "Leonardo."
With cloak thrown back, displaying the
vigorous lines of trunk and limbs, the "Leon-
ardo" statue has an additional advantage
in the face not being overshadowed by a cap,
a rarely happy addition to either a marble
or a bronze figure. Aside from these acces-
sories, the giant artistic capabilities of Titian
are presented with specific power, while the
stalwart figure holds the physical strength that
enabled Titian at the advanced age of ninety-
nine to paint his magnificent " Entombment."
On the whole, the "Titian" is a satisfactory
piece of work, and especially so when taken
in conjunction with the " Bismarck," the faces
of the two men being too familiar to allow
failure on the sculptor's part to pass unrebuked.
HONORED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ROME
In February, 1908, the Faculty of the Univ-
ersity of Rome visited the studio in the Baths
to see a completed clay sketch of their dis-
tinguished co-worker, Professor Alfonso Sella.
A man of remarkable mind, his output in the
form of essays and text-books embodying his
scientific investigations was prolific and val-
uable. Dying while still within his prime, his
death was a loss to the world of science and a
regret to his contemporaries and friends. Sir
Moses Ezekiel was selected to make a bust for
the University. A few days after the above
visit, he described the result in a letter to a
friend:
"The Faculty of the University of Rome have
been to see the clay bust of Sella, and have ordered
it in marble. They found it a most perfect like-
ness of Sella, and quite confused me by so many
congratulations. . . . "
Loving the beautiful, accentuating it in his
work when it existed in his subject, he has
many busts of beautiful women scattered
throughout Europe and America, but none
realty so perfect as that of "the Pearl of
Savty," the Dowager Queen of Italy. Very
different in character is that of the "Christ
Bomd." Having a strangely painful effect
upon all who examine it, the bust can never be
a general favorite; but as a marble rendition of
physical and mental suffering, it is matchless.
It probably i- not too much to say that, hav-
ing once studied the bust, it would be impos-
sible to shake off all recollection of the agon-
ized face.
In marble protraiture Sir Moses has made
some of his pronounced successes when com-
batting with the almost insurmountable diffi-
culties of rendering a satisfactory likeness of
the dead. And in dealing with unfortunate
facial peculiarities, he has on more than one
occasion so adapted some attitude or play
of features that, while retaining truest likeness,
he has achieved an attractive and often aston-
ishing result.
In studying the work of Sir Moses, the most
casual observer of the Greek treatment of
drapery must be immediately struck with the
indisputable evidence of its influence on this
modern sculptor; the sweep and lightness of
the fold, the very texture of the fabric which,
the result of a skilful manipulation, reaches
its greatest perfection in his famous "The
Dead Christ" in the " Bazar du Charity." The
garments lie in a breathless stillness, subtly
suggestive of death and its immovability.
In evolving the type of head and features for
"The Dead Christ" the sculptor was free to
choose from the idealization of centuries, but
he created his own ideal, selecting the highest
characteristics of the Hebrew race; and with
the pitifulness, the suffering, and the horrors
of death eliminated, it is one of majesty and
calmest triumph. That this has been wrought
into the cold marble is beyond question, for
when the cast is unveiled for visitors to the
studio, it is usual that an utter silence will seize
the most thoughtless person present, and some
will even step back as before a mighty presence;
the impression produced by either the cast or
the marble is one of awe.
It is of interest that Sir Moses personally
puts the finishing touches to the marble of all
his works; when this particular sculpture was
developed from the plaster cast, he, as usual,
finished it, while the wonderful details of the
faultless Carrara were only obtained by three
years of patient labor.
In striking contrast to the dashingly vivid
life of the Jefferson, or the concentrated powers
of the Bismarck, is the sleeping peace of the
recumbent "Effigy of Mrs. Fisk," or of "Mrs.
Andrew D. White," whose lovely face seems
merely sleeping. Too often, though a correct
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AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR IN ROME
representation of facial qualities, a bust or an
effigy will fail utterly in what might be called
response; but, under the hand of genius, the
resisting marble may be far more satisfactory
than the flat, though flesh-colored canvas.
Yet the possibilities of a low relief when made
in marble has its fascinations, as Sir Moses
has acknowledged in some highly finished
reliefs and intaglios.
The likeness of his mother is particularly
exquisite in its light touches and fine line work,
while that of his nephew is full of elusive
beauties in its masculine strength, it being a
touchingly appropriate memorial to the brave
and gentle Jeptha Workum, a name known
and revered by many of the citizens of Cincin-
nati, whose lives he saved from flood and fire.
These need neither color to render them finer
portraits nor the rounded marble to bring them
into more tangible form. Satisfactory use of
the relief in decorative work has been exem-
plified by Sir Moses in a number of fine pieces,
most of which are now in European palaces
and private homes.
A NOTABLE NAPOLEON
The greatest achievement of this sculptor
is probably that now on the work-platform in
his "Lower Studio" — a life-sized statue of
"L'homme," as the French delight in calling
Napoleon; though it is still in the clay, pliant
and unfinished, it is a masterful portrayal of a
man reviewing the crucial moment when he
failed, the death-sharpened perceptions ques-
tioning if that moment did not really lie further
back when the Good Angel was discarded
for earthly aggrandizement.
Sir Moses presents Napoleon as seated by
the sea-shore at St. Helena, his chin resting
on clasped hands, holding a cane between
his knees; brooding on the failure of his life,
always self-adoring, he is passionately self-
pitying, and the stubbed fingers folded on the
cane are in themselves an epitome of the
man's nature.
The powerful intellect sways him remorse-
lessly from retrospection to anticipation of the
future, now so nearly present, but with lips com-
pressed he waits in the fearlessness of which
even exile and the consequent prostration of
the soul cannot rob him.
The late F. Marion Crawford called this
work "The History of Napoleon," the terse-
ness of the novelist's description embodying
the sum total of the tragedy. Cesareo, the
Sicilian poet and art critic, writes of it as
follows:
"Rarely or never has the tragedy of Napoleon
been signified with more severe sorrow, with such
intense truth, with more heroic grief, than in the
sculpture of Ezekiel. Beautiful as a chorus from
the Filottete of Sophocles, while in the large and
remote eyes of the Exile the memory is reflected
of the vast battles, his hands fall inert on the grip
of a common walking stick. Ah! nothing is more
heartrending than the irony of that cane in those
hands that commanded the world. Alone, in sight
of the ocean, he does not notice the wind that
ruffles the locks on his imperious brow. His old
gray overcoat, thrown over his shoulders, seems
to want to embrace him with the veteran affection
of a humble, faithful friend. But over the new
Silence, in which such majesty of sorrow is pre-
served, the invisible wings of an epic poem are
passing."
Thus working with the same zeal as when
a student in Berlin, and endowed with an
apparently limitless reserve of originative con-
ception of thought and a vast knowledge of the
technique of his art, his works show a con-
tinuously advancing grasp on the possibilities
of marble and bronze, and so much is accom-
plished that the enormous accumulation of
casts have from time to time been destroyed in
his studios. When friends protest against
this destruction of the casts, he answers:
"I have finished with this, thought, I am
through with it," and the casts continue to dis-
appear from sight. In this de. .ruction of his
casts, Sir Moses Ezekiel has nude probably
the one mistake of his life; to km r of art it will
appeal as a loss not to be filled: bi.i even with
this ordered destruction of the < »sfs, both
studios hold many completed pirn - of work
both in clay and plastaline, the o: finals of
groups and statues and busts that have 1 , ought
him the titles he wears so honorably
DECORATIONS FROM MONARCH*
The Emperor of Germany and tht Gra' d
Duke of Saxe-Meiningen have conferral u, >n
him the "Cavalier Crosses for Merit in ' »*t and
Science," and the King of Italy bestovu-: on
him the cross of an "Officer of the Crtvn. of
Italy." To meet him in his "Lower Stvlio,''
or " Workshop ' ' as he fondly calls it, is ret: in . t . J
as one of the great opportunities of a stra v » '
visit to Rome, for here is his work, the v >u't >
of an earnest life. But it is the " 1 1 pi 1
Studio" that is more generally kno\A. to
visitors, it being there that the master ret-'ves*
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AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR IN ROME
"JUSTICE" "BROTHERHOOD'
THE LIBERTY BELL IN DETAIL — THOMAS JEFFERSON MONUMENT
his guests, extending to titled stranger and to
undistinguished traveler the welcome of a
gentle, warm cordiality. Once a week through-
out the winter season, Sir Moses lays aside his
white buckskin coat and receives his guests,
and there is music on these afternoons, ren-
dered by the first pianist and the four finest
string-musicians of Rome.
His antique silver tea-service shows to
fullest advantage on a table of Giallo Romano
Antico — a Roman marble of intense yellow —
its one slab so highly polished that the flames
of the candles in the ivy-wreathed candel-
abra are reflected in long lines of light between
the bowls of flowers — very long lines of light,
in truth, for the table can accommodate forty
people. The candles on the table are sup-
plemented by others arranged around the
walls, and by massive, decorated ones held by
carven angels kneeling by the piano, yet the
light is always controlled and mellow.
The black furniture is hand-carved; a few
"EQUALITY" "LIBERTY"
THE LIBERTY BELL IN DETAIL —THOMAS JEFFERSON MONUMENT
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AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR IN ROME
12261
choice pictures fill in the spaces where the
dark-red draperies are drawn aside, or are
upheld by the shining horns of oxen from
the Campagna, showing the book-cases
beneath. But with the first chord from the
piano the music-loving Italians become silent.
The soft minor note of the flame under the
tea-kettle is the only break in the waiting
silence as the symphonies steal through the air,
THOMAS JEFFERSON MONUMENT
"Jefferson was only thirty-three when the ink dried on his signature to
the Declaration of lndc|jendcnce"
while here dim, there bathed in light, the
statues and busts allure thought to them-
selves or direct it to the master sculptor
sitting in his favorite high-backed chair,
his lustrous eyes on the musicians. The
exultation of Victory, the majesty of the
Law, the might of the State, the power of
the Mind, the triumph of Death, are so
wrought in marble or warmer bronze that
none can fail to rejoice that genius lives.
THE SCULPTOR'S MOTHER
A Medallion of Mrs. Ezekicl, of Cincinnati
THE SCULPTOR'S NEPHEW
A memorial to Jeptha Workum, of Cincinnati
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A MARBLE RELIEF OF MRS. McKIBBIN
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AN AMERICAN SCULPTOR IN ROME
12263
"THE DEAD CHRIST"
EFFIGY OF MRS. FISK, AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY
EFFIGY OF MRS. ANDREW D. WHITE, AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY
12264
THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
m
!y j^
fc/^B
^cc*
H
«
K^^^M
"AMERICA"
A detail from the "Religious Liberty" group
Artists, musicians and poets are drawn there
by the sympathy of a like earnestness of life,
and its purpose. The vaulted roof of the
studio, lined with the time-tinted garlands of
CLAY MODEL OF A MARBLE BUST OF CARDINAL
HOHENLOHE
leaves, is the same roof that has sheltered the
generations, and the brilliantly tiled vestibule
is that which for centuries has borne the feet of
the fluctuating population of "the Eternal City."
THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
ni
THE BROWN MAN OF INDIA AND EGYPT
BY
B. L. PUTNAM WEALE
THE problem of India, Egypt, and the
Near East is very different from the
general problem of Eastern Asia,
which was discussed in the preceding article.
We have an entirely new marshalling of oppos-
ing forces. In the Far East, because of the
new nationalism which has so magically
grown up, and because of masterful Japan,
the white man is now willing to admit that
he must abandon all territorial ambitions
and confine himself strictly to trade and indus-
try and to preserving his vaguely defined
influence and prestige which he acquired in
a simpler age. In India, in Central Asia, and
in all regions adjacent to the Near East, how-
ever, he still boldly remains a conqueror in
possession of vast stretches of valuable terri-
tory — a conqueror who has no intention of
lightly surrendering his conquests and who
sees in every attempt to modify the old order
of things the beginning of an unjustifiable
revolt which must be repressed at all costs.
THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
12265
THE RAJAH OF COCHIN
THE MAHARAJAH OF BURBHl/RGAH
THE MAHARAJAH OF LAHORE THE MAHARAJAH OF GRAVALIOR
INFLUENTIAL NATIVE PRINCES OF INDIA
Types of the local rulers of the feudatory native states. Most of them are men of great wealth, maintaining even yet
a certain degree of oriental splendor at their courts
(Fbotofimph* copyrighted, 1906, by Underwood ft Underwood, N. Y.)
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
12267
LAJPAT RAI
A leader of sedition in Lahore, recently deported without trial
BAL GANGA1) HAR TILAK
A Poona editor now in jail for complicity in a bomb movement
ARABINDA GHOSE
An Oxford graduate recently acquitted of the charge of treason
KRISHNAKUMAR M1TRA
A Calcutta editor who is now in prison
FOUR LEADERS OF INDIA'S NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
12268
THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
Photographs copyrighted by
NATIVES OF KABUL
Under* oo<l & Underwood, N. ^ .
WOMEN OF THE HIMALAYAS
The spirit of the Crusaders can thus be said
openly to linger in those latitudes which are
here very broadly named the Middle and
Near East ; and it may be even maintained that
to-dav the white man and the Cross are as
blindly opposed to the brown man and Islam-
ism, Hinduism, and other Asiatic creeds, and
what they imply, as has been the case in the
distant past. The opposing forces are ranged
opposite one another as in battle array; and
Copyright, 1909, by Ui
HYDERABAD CAMEL CAVALRY
& Underwood.
A SIKH NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
12269
though this and future generations may not
be so warlike as the generations which have
passed away, still many of the same motives
actuate both sides and an ineradicable sus-
picion tinges their relations.
It is therefore only natural that among
Englishmen, who are of necessity far more
decree which the Crusade-loving white man
believes he inevitably acquires in the lands
of colored men after a few decades have passed
away; and, therefore, to attempt to dispute
that decree is an almost unbelievable pro-
ceeding. Only in the cases of Turkey, Persia,
and Afghanistan the Asiatic is encouraged to
Copyright, 1903, by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
THE UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY
India has five great universities — Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Allahabad, and the Punjab
acutely interested in this special problem than
other men, the newly kindled national spirit
in India and Egypt (now expressing itself
in various ways) should be looked upon almost
as a traitorous conspiracy to defraud a race
of their rightful inheritance. These lands are
governed by right of conquest; they represent
much blood and treasure spent in the past;
their tenure is sanctified by a sort of holy
be independent because there his independence
serves temporarily as a buffer between the
various European rivals and prevents any dis-
turbance of the present balance of power until
new arrangements shall have been made.
THE CRUSADER OF OIJR DAY
Now, seeing that the strength of a people
resides rather more in their blind prejudices
12270
THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
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THE WEIGHT THAT HOLDS THE BALANCE LEVEL
A parade of sailors from British warships in Calcutta harbor
than in anything else, it must be frankly
admitted that anyone who refuses to see things
as they still appear to the mass of his country-
men and who simply argues academically on
such questions of color as those now being
discussed, without taking those essential pre-
judices into consideration, is not worthy of
being listened to. The most important factor
of the day in the regions under discussion is
undoubtedly the white man's prejudice against
new ideas — against the very ideas his presence
has served to inculcate — and his firm deter-
mination to hold tightly to what his fathers
acquired. It is the figure of the ancient
Crusader, striking down with his heavy mace
or great two-handed sword the dark infidel
who opposes his righteous progress in swarms
— which is the proper figure to keep always
before one when considering the conflict of
color in the Near East and Middle East. This
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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
PORT SAID, THE EUROPEAN GATEWAY TO THE SUEZ CANAL
The British Empire holds the key
is still openly the English ideal, no matter
what may be said to the contrary; it is the
ideal which can be seen peeping out of all
English literature in a sort of deathless pride
of race and color. Though Russians, French-
men, Germans, and others who are far less
interested in this especial problem pretend to
view it in a detached manner, and to see in the
Englishman a land and sea pirate, they have
only to be actively opposed by the man of color
to express much the same ideas. The one im-
portant difference is that the Englishman
believes that he is self-sufficient, while the
continental nations proclaim the inherent
solidarity of the white races and insist that one
day it may be necessary for all white men openly
to unite.
No matter how much it may be possible
ADEN, THE SOUTHERN GATEWAY TO THE SUEZ CANAL
Britain also controls this end of the highway to India
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
FELLAHIN OF THE EGYPTIAN SANDS
for Europeans and Americans to view remoter
Eastern Asia in a new way and to admit that
new ideals have become quite permissible in
the case of the astute yellow man, in the older
portions of Asia which have long been num-
bered among the white man's possessions no
such tolerance need be expected for many
years to come. In these regions the white man
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KHEDIVE ABBAS HILMI
SIR ELDON GORST, BRITISH AGENT
THE REAL AND THE NOMINAL RULER OF EGYPT
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
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has been so long taught to believe that it is a
question of everything or nothing, that he has
ended by believing that this must be Gospel
truth. Either he is to remain undisputed mas-
ter where he now stands entrenched, or he is
to be beaten into ignominious retreat*
FOREIGN "GOVERNMENT" IMPOSSIBLE
In these peculiar circumstances it is with
something of the start of the man who wakes
from a horrid nightmare that one turns to John
Stuart Mill — that is, from the practical to the
philosophic point of view — and gazes blankly
at one of his most remarkable political pro-
nouncements. For no matter how much one
may like to think the contrary, what is true of
one mass of human beings must be equally
true of another mass, irrespective of color or
creed. Now John Stuart Mill said: "The
government of a people by itself has a mean-
ing and a reality — but such a thing as govern-
ment of one people by another does not and
cannot exist."
Did the great intellect which compressed
into this burning sentence the very essence of
politics imply that India has really no such a
thing as a government — that Russia has been
only a barbarous conqueror of the Khanates —
that it is mere insolence to prostitute a term
which has an almost divine sound and which
should be as precious to a people as the altars
of its religious faith? He did mean it, and
he was quite right in meaning it; for no matter
how flattering it may be to national pride to
believe that the reverse is possible, it is really
quite impossible. It is absolutely certain that
a people which does not govern itself has no
real government at all, but only a system of
provisional administration which is instinct-
ively looked upon as hateful and which from
its very existence encourages men to dream
of what they call liberty.
It can therefore be said with justice that
neither India nor Egypt has to-day any govern-
ment — only a system of provisional adminis-
tration backed up by alien bayonets and by a
traditional fear; and that Russia's possessions in
Central Asia as well as France's possessions
in North Africa are similarly situated. That
there should now be a growing and perilous
agitation among those who are so governed is
just what might be expected. Sufficient time
has now elapsed since the white man's great
conquests of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries for the colored man all over the
world to realize that the domination which
he was beginning to look upon as natural is
quite unnatural and directly opposed to the
laws of common sense.
The man of color, therefore, now openly
rejects the idea that he is the slave of the white
man — that it is his fate to sow and reap, to
buy and sell, to labor and sweat, but not to gov-
ern. All the scientific aids to the white man's
dominion — steamships, railroads, telegraphs,
modern weapons, high explosives — once
looked upon as miracles, have become unim-
portant trifles because of this new knowledge.
Out of Asiatic brains now spring ideas which
will soon easily bind hand and foot these
ominous scientific things and render them only
laughable as governing instruments. It is
only necessary for a small percentage of India's
vast population to understand and chant
Mill's dictum in a vast and growing chorus to
cripple forever an administration which has
endured for more than a century. Numbers
tell in the modern world as they did in the
ancient; resolution and fanaticism are fearful
things; and when nations possessing immense
reserves of men are willing to call their
strength into play, the outlook can only be very
gloomy unless a spirit of compromise arises.
EAST IS EAST, WEST IS WEST
Since the coming victory of mind over matter
throughout all Asia in the face of the great-
est difficulties is now generally admitted by the
thoughtful, one may well wonder what is to
become of India and the rest of the Middle and
Near East during the present century, and
how the present conflict of color can possibly
adjust itself.
One of the ideas which it is the hardest to
get Caucasians properly to understand is that
the Asiatic is not delighted with justice per se,
as the white-skinned man pretends to be, that
the Asiatic really cares but little about it if he
can get sympathy in the way that he under-
stands sympathy. It is the real reason why
every Asiatic in his heart of hearts prefers
the rule of his own nationals — bad though it
may be — to the most ideal rule of aliens;
when he is ruled by his own countrymen, he is
dealt with by people who understand his frail-
ties and who, though they may savagely pun-
ish him, are at least in sympathy with the
motives which have prompted his delin-
quencies. They will always carefully consider
such motives and will never attempt to impose
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
a scheme of life conceived in other latitudes
and natural only to those latitudes, whenever
experience shows the folly of it. The ther-
mometer, if men only knew it, is one of the
greatest political guides in the world; and in
front of English statesmen, at least, there
should be spread thermometric charts to show
how to navigate the ship of state- Thus, only
a maniac among Asiatics would have ordered
that fatal step, the partition of Bengal — for
the simple reason that no matter how just and
sensible that step might be from an adminis-
trative point of view, it could only be an act
of folly from the point of view of men who
attach almost childish importance to tradition
and custom.
The grand plea, then, of the white man that
he is just; that he dispenses absolute justice
where he rules; that he attends to all measures
with scientific accuracy; and that his presence
should therefore be welcomed — this grand
_plea is looked upon as only stupid, both by
Asiatics and those who really understand Asia.
It totally ignores the only really essential fact
regarding Europe's mastery over a large portion
of Asia, which is that the European is dis-
liked because he is a European — that is,
because he is a man who, when set in au-
thority over Asiatics, cannot understand their
point of view and who acts as if latitude and
longitude were only geographical and not polit-
ical terms of the highest importance.
FAMILIARITY BREEDS HATRED
Mr. Meredith Townsend, a writer of great
ability, who certainly understood the Middle
and Near East, wrote on this subject so lumin-
ously that it is well to quote him here. This
is what he said about the Englishman:
" It is very difficult, of course, for an Englishman,
conscious of his own rectitude and benevolence of
feeling, to believe that he will not be more liked
when he is better known; but a good many facts
seem to show that it is so. He is not seen and
talked to anywhere by men of a different race
so much as he is in Ireland, and he is not hated
quite so much anywhere else. He is decidedly
much more disliked in Egypt since he appeared
there in such numbers. He is more hated in the
sea-coast towns of India, where he is prominent,
busy, and consequendy talked to, than he is in the
interior where he is rarely seen; much more de-
tested in the planter districts than in the districts
where he is only a rare visitor. If there is contempt
for him anywhere in India, it is in the great towns,
not in the rural stations where he is nearly invisible;
and contempt is of all forms of race-hatred the
most dangerous.
" It may be said that the Englishman in the great
cities is often a low fellow, but that is not a suffi-
cient explanation. The officers of the old Army
were not low fellows. The broadest of all facts
bearing on this suggestion of more intercourse is
the fate of that Army. No class of natives knew
the European so well as the Sepoys knew their
officers, and among no class was that knowledge
in itself so irritating. They were notoriously better
treated than the men of any army; the etiquette
was always to listen to their complaints; there was
a feeling in many regiments that the relations
between men and officers had been true leaders
in battle — yet the Sepoys slaughtered the offi-
cers out, killing also their wives and children.
Association had in that case only deepened race-
hatred. It certainly does not extinguish it in the
Southern States of America, the Northerners who
do not live with the blacks being far more dis-
posed to do them justice, though, when they
emigrate southward, they often display a harder
and more bitter contempt.
"The Indian, who, of all the heroes of the
Mutiny, showed the most bitter enmity to the
British race as distinguished from the British
Government, was Azimoollah Khan, who had
lived years among them and knew English per-
fectiy; while no white dwellers in the tropics are
quite so just and benevolent toward the dark race
as English Members of Parliament, who never
saw them. In truth, if we are to take facts as evi-
dence, it might fairly be said that the less the white
and the colored races come into contact with each
other the less is the development of race-hatred,
which only tends to become dangerous when they
are interspersed, and mutually comprehend one
another's strength and weakness."
If this pronouncement by Mr. Townsend
were accepted as absolutely final, nothing
would remain for the white man but to aban-
don all attempts at finding a middle way.
But, fortunately, this statement (like every
generalization of facts which are difficult for
any single man to grasp in their entirety) is
already somewhat out-of-date, and is con-
fessedly the pronouncement of an old man
and not that of a young and hopeful man.
HATRED ONLY FOR THE OPPRESSOR
For it is a fact that the East is changing just
as the rest of the world is changing; and one
of the most remarkable developments which
has come in recent years has been the wide-
spread realization that race-hatred in Asia
is largely the hatred of the "under-dog" for
the powerful beast that stands growling 6ver
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him. Release the under-dog from his igno-
minious position, and at once it will be seen that
much of the so-called race-hatred is really
only sullen and transitory anger such as a
beaten animal necessarily indulges in. Euro-
peans were probably never hated more in
Asia than in Japan (where there is an immense
pride of race) before the treaties had been
revised, vexatious disabilities removed, and
the international status of the Japanese afforded
full recognition. It is true that to-day the
European may still be disliked among some
classes of Japanese, but he is certainly no
longer blindly hated simply because he is a
white man. Similarly in China there has
lately been an immense change of opinion —
a really wonderful change, considering that
the Chinese treaties have not yet been revised,
and that the European still often acts very
inconsiderately. The change in China has
been undoubtedly entirely prompted by the
general recognition of the fact that no longer
will "the gun-boat policy" be lightly indulged
in by any European Power.
Just as there have been these transforma-
tions in Japan and China, so is it certain that
in India a remarkable development is quickly
being recognized as a sign of the times. Briefly,
the bureaucracy has become the sole enemy —
leaving the army, the merchant, and the
nondescript classes at most only disliked
— because it is generally understood that
the bureaucracy is primarily responsible for
a state of affairs hurtful to the pride of every
educated Indian. In other words, the gen-
eral hatred of the European is being rapidly
narrowed down to a particular animosity
toward those who usurp the reins of govern-
ment. It becomes thus to-day a much more
easy matter than it was fifty years ago to find
the proper solution; for India of the twentieth
century is not India of the nineteenth century.
INDIA DEMANDS REFORMS
Let us see then what Indians demand in
the way of reforms. Nobody has stated
them more clearly than the Honorable Mr.
G. K. Gokhale who visited England three
years ago and advocated the following reforms
as the principal and immediate ones needed
to reestablish confidence in England:
(1) Advance in self-government. The enlarge-
ment of the Legislative Council, both imperial and
provincial, an increase in the proportion of their
selected members, and a widening of their func-
tions, including some sort of control, however lim-
ited, over public expenditure.
(2) Admission of qualified Indians to the
Secretary of State's Council and to the Executive
Councils of the Viceroy and of the Governors of
Madras and Bombay. The nomination of Indian
members of the Secretary of State's Council to be
made by an electoral college composed of the
elected members of the various Legislative Coun-
cils in India.
(3) A free and unfettered career in the public
services, involving a large substitution of the
economical and equally efficient Indian agency
for the costly foreign agency in the higher ranks
of all departments, and local competitive exam-
inations.
(4) Cautious but steady improvement of the
position of Indians in the Army.
(5) De-centralization of district administration
and extension of municipal self-government.
(6) Separation of judicial from executive func-
tions, and reconstitution of the judicial service by
placing it under the control of the High Courts in-
stead of the executive governments, and by sub-
stituting legal practitioners as judges in place of
members of the Civil Service.
(7) Reduction of military expenditure; also of
the heavy cost of the civil administration due to
the higher branches of the public service being
a virtual monopoly of Europeans, so as to set free
funds to be devoted to the following objects:
(a) Elementary education, which should be
made free at once throughout India and
gradually compulsory.
(b) Industrial education.
(c) Improved sanitation for the poor.
(d) Abolition of the salt tax and the opium
tariff.
* (e) Measures for the relief of agricultural
indebtedness, and the improvement of the cul-
tivator's material condition generally.
INDIA'S DEMANDS REASONABLE
A rapid perusal of these proposed reforms
shows that the moderates in Indian politics
do not yet aspire to anything more than a share,
however small, in the administration of their
country. This would put an end to the present
system under which the opinion of a foreign
official overrides and completely extinguishes
that of the educated men of India. To those
who have some acquaintance with the prac-
tical work of government, certain clauses in the
list of the reforms demanded should cause
great surprise — not because of the changes
contemplated but because of the strange state
of affairs which has so long obtained without
provoking tremendous criticism. That judi-
cial and executive functions should not have.
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
been separated before now is a blot on English
administration, for the two functions are entirely
incompatible. That no attempt should have
been made before now to better the general
lot of the people — to educate them, to uplift
them, to make them something better than mere
serfs — is nothing short of disgraceful in the
case of a country such as England; it is a
matter which has attracted adverse criticism
from every intelligent traveler. The same
may be said of many other points.
THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION
Thanks to the liberalism of Lord Morley,
something has already been done in many
directions; and it may be even taken for granted
that during the next two or three or four
decades, as the moral sense of the English
people is more and more aroused and they
better understand a difficult question, Mr.
Gokhale's programme will gradually be
realized.
But this programme is admittedly only a first
step: the next step will undoubtedly come in
the form of a widespread agitation for the
substitution of a bona-fide government for the
present administrative system. Either the
federation of all India under some pseudo-
European form must be contemplated, or there
should come the granting of constitutions to
the various provinces, which will make India
assume something of the political appearance
of South America — a South America united
by a sort of general concordat, sealed by the
might of the British Empire. It is impossible
to believe that the present system has any ele-
ments of permanency. The next few years
should simply afford a valuable breathing
space during which political England will have
to make up its mind whether it is worth while
attempting to retain India as a portion of the
British Empire on much the same terms as
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South
Africa; or whether again the whole strength
of the Empire is to be exerted to try to keep
three hundred millions of men as bondsmen.
A RED FLAG OF WARNING
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind
that should the latter course be attempted one
day — it may only be in the year 1950, or
perhaps not until the year 2,000 — India
will be lost to England, and one of the greatest
experiments ever made in the political his-
tory of man will end in nothing. But the
latter alternative is the more unlikely of the
two to occur, since the spirit of compromise
is already in the air, and middle ground
can gradually be found. Swadeshi, boycott,
bomb- throwing — these rebellious movements
of the brown man under the yoke of the white
man are only temporary symptoms of griev-
ous complaints; they are the howls of the under-
dog for the time being securely pinned down
by the British bull-dog.
EGYPT BOUNDED BY BATTLESHIPS
The situation is even more complex in
Egypt than in India, the fate of master and
servant being involved in a still more curious
manner. In India, England can at least try
what experiments it may choose, knowing
that its title is clear, that the greatest mountain
barrier in the world shuts in the country on the
north, that the broad ocean surrounds it else-
where, and that the might of a whole prej-
udiced Empire can still be summoned to the
rescue in case of necessity. India thus lies
securely in England's hands.
But in Egypt geography is not so kind —
neither are Englishmen so convinced there of
their holy right. Nor is Egypt a real country;
it is only a province, a province temporarily
dominated by one man while it really belongs
to a man of another color. Virtually, Egypt
has no frontiers at all: Egypt's frontiers are
merely England's battleships! Egypt is, there-
fore, surrounded by outer perils which are not
shut off as are the outer perils which menace
India; Egypt's perils are undefined; Arab,
Sudanese, and Turk, perhaps, wait only for a
disturbance of the present balance of naval
power to leap forward; and every step in Egypt
may consequently really be a step in the
retreat for England. This is why it is impera-
tive that the inter-connection between all
modern Asia as well as Moslem Africa should
to-day be properly understood. Every factor
is now able to exert some influence on all the
other factors in the colored world, and it
becomes a question of political cunning to
utilize each to the best advantage of the whole
problem.
The truth is that while India may be con-
sidered the brightest jewel in the British
Crown, Egypt is only valuable just as Malta
and Gibraltar and Aden are valuable —
because it dominates lines of communication
which are as precious as the possessions them-
selves because of the peculiar tenure on which
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12279
those possessions are held. For the possessions,
without these lines of communication being
properly secured, become of no value so long as
they are held simply by the sword and not by
affection and devotion. So long as they do
not consider themselves as integral parts of a
far-flung Empire — and therefore so long as
India is administered as it is to-day — so long
must Egypt be retained in its present anoma-
lous condition. The reformers may clamor
in Egypt all they will; it will not affect the
political issue in the slightest. Though Egypt
were as ripe for self-government as United
South Africa; though Egyptians could adduce
ten thousand arguments with which to fortify
their demand for evacuation — all these argu-
ments would fall to the ground because of that
one condition: Egypt is bound to the Indian
question and can only be unbound step by step
with the growth of a free India.
HIGHWAY TO THE EAST MENACED
It is a remarkable and little appreciated
fact that the greatest possible menace to this
province and the rest of the route to the East
now comes not so much from the old European
rivals as from Asia and Africa themselves.
Men are not so small-minded, so bound up
with trumpery European differences, that
they have no time to consider the new Asia.
During more than one century — throughout
that entire period of expansion during which
Europe imposed its rule on so large a portion
of Asia — European rivalry was the chief danger
permanently menacing the distant over-seas
possessions of the various Powers. The white
man then was so vastly superior in the arts
of war that he could not be opposed with suc-
cess unless other white men fought him. Eng-
land and France fought one another as bitterly
in India as in Canada to decide who was to be
the brown man's master; and yet the defeat of
colonial France under the Bourbons was only
the signal a little later for Napoleon, as soon as
power had been placed in his hands, to resume
the struggle in new regions in a still more
bitter fashion. Egypt and Syria were attacked
and almost conquered when English sea-
victories readjusted the balance and reduced
France in the nearer East to the position it
had long occupied in the Middle East; while
Holland, then a great colonial Power, was
reduced to relying on England's benevolence
to retain an island or two, because it had sided
with France.
During the long peace previous to the
Crimean War, these Asiatic-African questions
were apparently dead, so far as this European
rivalry was concerned, but they soon were
shown to be only slumbering. The Crimean
War reopened them, and at the close of the
Russo-Turkish War of '78 Russia had so far
taken the place once occupied by France that
Lord Beaconsfield thought it necessary to
acquire a new outpost — Cyprus — so that
a new guarantee should exist for the invio-
lability of British-Asiatic communications.
The Crimean campaign had seemed to demon-
strate that Russia could only play a defensive
game. Yet the Turkish War, in spite of a
hundred mistakes, showed that against Asiatics
the white man's weight and persistence were
still the same factors they had always been;
while Russia's slow but continuous advance
in Central Asia until the frontiers of Afghan-
istan had been reached sounded the same note.
In other words, until the twentieth century
had dawned, it was too early for the Asiatic to
assert himself; consequently, it still remained
mainly a European question as to who should
control this part or that part of Asia. The
severe check which the white invader has
recently received in extreme Eastern Asia has
magically altered the situation, even more for
England than for Russia. It has suddenly
made statesmen aware of a fact which they
seemed in some danger of forgetting, owing to
the comparative ease with which Eastern
empires were won in the past.
THE RESERVES OF THE ASIATIC
For the reflex action of the dramatic Japan-
ese victories over Russia by land and sea has
been to make every Asiatic nation suddenly
conscious of its past and present condition,
and to make those who can think understand
that real salvation does not lie so much in
provoking European rivalries as in self-asser-
tion. In fact, it may be said that Japan has
made all Asiatics turn back to the history of a
hundred and fifty years ago and read how
often they nearly succeeded, in spite of their
immeasurable inferiority to the European in
the arts of war, in holding him in check. That
distinguished officer, General Ian Hamilton,
when his mind was full of these things, wrote
these significant words during the Japanese
war: "There is material in the north of India
and Nepaul sufficient and fit under good leader-
ship to shake the artificial society of Europe
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
to its foundations if once it dares to tamper
with that militarism which alone supplies it
with any higher ideal than money and the
luxury which that money can purchase."
Think of it! Warlike India is counted able to
defy not only England, but all Europe. Twenty
or thirty years ago such an opinion would
have been laughed at; to-day men are wise
enough to know that in political matters one
never laughs.
The time has evidently come when the two
greatest representatives of Europe in Asia —
England and Russia — should gradually bring
about a solution of the whole question, by
working together and virtually allying them-
selves— not only with one another but with
the peoples they have subjugated. This can
be the only permanent solution. Russia,
because of its peculiar political system, its
long mixing with Asia, its imaginative powers,
and the slight extent to which race prejudice
interferes with its officials, is already many
steps ahead of England in the matter of prop-
erly obliterating geographical boundaries and
assimilating alien peoples. But there is no
reason why in a somewhat different manner
England should not do the same thing. The
methods may be different but the results can
still be identical. It has become a question of
establishing a proper internal equipoise in each
given region which will release the controlling
country from the present attitude; it is not so
much a question of racial assimilation as of
political assimilation.
A MOSLEM EMPIRE POSSIBLE
For though it may seem too soon as a ques-
tion of practical politics to consider whether
regenerated Turkey is capable of founding a
great Moslem empire which will extend from
the slopes of the Balkans to the confines of
India and to the waters of the Caspian, it
is by no means too soon to view that
problem as a racial problem of the future.
The Austrian advance in the Balkans is
of much greater future significance than
of present significance; it heralds a move-
ment which must gain force from year
to year. It cannot be doubted that in very
few years the Bulgarians will show open signs
of unrest and attempt to advance their frontier
farther south, just as the Austrians have done —
thereby inviting other racial movements.
Europe will certainly regain possession of
St. Sophia and the Bosphorus. This pressure
will undoubtedly produce profound results.
The Turk is one of the most militant Asiatics
and the fate of Turkey largely depends not
so much on the spread of the constitutional
idea as on the regeneration of Turkish mili-
tarism; it is therefore certain that if the Turk
is gradually pushed out of Europe he must
seek new provinces.
Now, as Persia is but a second Korea, it is
only a question of time for that country to be
absorbed — and one of the buffers which keep
Russia and England apart will be removed.
If Afghanistan goes the same way — as it
must go when Persia goes — the two Powers
will at last be face to face; and they will be
forced to solve their differences or will
be overwhelmed by a common fate. It would
be most certainly to the true interests of both
countries if an Asiatic empire at least as strong
as Japan were to arise in extreme Western
Asia — for such an empire would serve to fix
things — to change them from their present
fluid state — and to render impossible the
advent of a new white conqueror in Asia
Minor, which is the dream of Berlin. It would
also, undoubtedly, hasten the movement
toward placing Asiatic dependencies on a
proper footing and, by giving them a sense of
citizenship which they now lack, would invite
them to share properly the burden of empire.
If, for instance, India could become a state
in the true sense of the word, it alone could
amply secure that no hostile armies menaced
it. Though the rise of a great Turkish
empire might bind Mohammedans very closely
together and give rise to a new species of
Asiatic irredentism, political freedom would
prove superior to religious ties, as it has always
done in the past.
It is the possibility that no strong indepen-
dent Asiatic state may arise in Nearer Asia,
as it has in Further Asia, which is disconcert-
ing; for while things remain in solution, there
can be -but little doubt that sporadic disturb-
ance and general unrest must continue increas-
ing until great explosions occur. Some menace
of Asia by Asia is needed to make Asiatics
properly conscious of the needs of the hour —
to make them willing to turn their eyes inward
and seek salvation themselves as the Chinese
are now willing to do, owing to the Japanese
menace which hangs over them. That is the
true salvation, the only real solution. The
salvation of Europe in Asia lies in creating an
internal Asiatic balance of power similar to
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the European balance of power; a balance of
power having little or nothing to do with
European domination and existing entirely
independent of it. Permanent peace is not
to be secured by such instruments as the
present Anglo- Japanese alliance, which pits
one European Power against another in Asia.
Such a course is admittedly only a quibbling
with the great future question.
THE BRITISH EMPIRE OF TO-MORROW
Only two white races are acutely interested
in Asia and what it stands for — the Anglo-
Saxon and the Slav. Only these two races
can solve the Asiatic problem. Though
France has important stakes, the loss of those
stakes would not mean to the world what a
general British retreat or a general Russian
retreat would mean. To-day India seems
important to the British Empire, merely
because England says that it is so. To-morrow,
when England will have shrunk to a very
small measure because of the growth of the
new Englands in Canada, in Australia, in
South Africa, and when the Empire will mean
an Empire of many hundreds of millions of
white men, the majority possessing very
definite opinions on the question of color —
in that historical to-morrow either definite and
consistent arrangements will have been made
regarding possessions still looked upon as fiefs,
or there will be no such possessions.
It seems plain that the hour is fast approach-
ing when old views must be entirely abandoned.
Just as the ideal in Eastern Asia should be
the maintaining of an exact balance between
two Asiatic Powers — a balance which is still
very far from existing, owing to the fact that
England remains partially blind to its true
interests — so in Nearer and Middle Asia should
the same counterpoise be aimed at. It will not
be possible to arrange the minor question of
the sociological relations between East and
West, which are now so often discussed —
the confining of workingmen to certain zones,
the question of international policing and
tariffs, the definition of many things now care-
fully left undefined — until these things have
been done. Can they ever be done ? If expert
opinion remains expert prejudice and nothing
else, one may well end with the words used
by General Gordon a quarter of a century ago:
44 You may do what you will. It will be no use.
India will never be reformed until there has
been a new revolt."
Just as Japan is the true key to the Far East,
so is India the key to both the Middle and Near
East; and as that key still lies firmly in Eng-
land's hands, should it fail to use it properly its
sin will find it out.
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
FIRST STRUGGLES IN AMERICA
BY
ALEXANDER IRVINE
THE journey home from Egypt on a
transport was a continuation of the
misery of the desert. What the
desert had left undone to weakened men, the
rough voyage accomplished. The ship was
overcrowded and almost every day dead bodies
lashed to planks were pitched over the side.
The sight (below decks) of scores of men
crawling around in a dying condition struck
terror to the hearts of the strong. The smells
were nauseating, and the food was vile. No
man knew when his turn would come. The
few doctors were utterly unable to cope with
this physical collapse of so many men.
The condition of the ship and of the men
furnished me with the best opportunity I had
had up to that time for evangelistic work. I
spent twenty hours of every twenty-four in
preaching the gospel to the men. The absence
of a chaplain on board made the work com-
paratively easy. My work was done so quietly
and unobtrusively that it was practically
unknown save to the sick and dying, until an
incident brought me somewhat into the light.
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
•We were In the Bay of Biscay, and those who
were well were fighting off the atmosphere of
disease. It was toward evening, and four men
were playing cards for money. I stood watch-
ing them with my hands behind my back. I
must have been there half an hour when the
man directly in front of me, looking around
and staring me in the face, said:
" Get fell out of 'ere ! I 'aven't won a penny
since you've been watchin' us."
The other men laughed, and I moved away,
excusing myself as I departed; but before I was
out of hearing, one of the men said:
" Don't be too sure of what you could do to
that fellow Irvine; his looks belie him. He's
got more steam in his elbow than you have."
That was all I heard, but as I was looking
over the side a minute or two later, a hand was
laid on my shoulder. I looked around. It
was the man who had threatened me.
" Say, pal," he said, " I didn't mean no 'arm.
These 'ere bloaks tell me as yer name's Irvine.
Is that so ?" I nodded assent. " Did yer ever
'ave a chum 'oose name was Creeden ? "
Again I nodded assent. " D'ye know what
became ov 'im ?"
" He was missing on the field," I replied.
"'E's dead," said the man.
Then he described to me the last moments
of my friend. It appeared that Creeden and
this man fell together on the field, Creeden shot
through the abdomen, this man through the
shoulder. An officer came along and offered
Creeden a mouthful of water, but he refused,
saying that he was all in, but that he wanted
to send a message to his chum — and this is
the message that he gave to the man who had
evidently just threatened to punch my head:
" Tell Irvine the anchor holds ! "
I was moved, of course, by the recital of this
story.
"What in 'ell did 'e mean by th' anchor
'oldin'?" the man asked.
" Old man," I said, " I had been trying for
a long time to lead Creeden to a religious life
and the story you tell is the only evidence that
I ever had that he took me seriously."
The man looked as if he were going to weep
and in a quivering voice he asked if I could
help him. He was going home to marry a
maiden in Kent whom he described as " a pure,
good girl." He felt unworthy, for he was a
gambler and a periodical drunkard, and he
thought that if a man like Creeden could be
helped, he could.
I struck the iron while it was hot, and said :
"There is a good deal to be done for you, but
you have to do it yourself! If you've got the
grit in you to face these fellows and make a con-
fession of religion right here and now, I will
guarantee that you'll land on the shores of Eng-
land a new man."
He looked at me for a moment with a stern,
hard face, then he said: "By God, I'll do it! "
There was no profanity in this assertion. It
was the strongest way he could put it; and we
dropped on our knees on the deck and began
to pray. In a minute or two half a dozen others
joined us. Then it seemed as if everybody
around us were on their knees; and then, when
I felt the atmosphere of the crowd, and the
reverence of it, I called on others to pray; half
a dozen responded, and then this man, above
the roar of the wind through the sails and the
creaking of the boats' davits, prayed to God
to make him a new man.
Creeden had been drafted from the ship in
a detachment for the front, and when we met
on the desert, we entered into a compact which
stipulated that if either of us fell on the field
of battle, the survivor was to take charge of the
deceased's effects, and visit his people.
The arrival of the troops in England was the
occasion for an unusual demonstration. We
were banqueted and paraded and all kinds of
honors were showered upon us. As we
marched through the streets in our sand-
colored uniforms, we were supposed to be
heroes. What a farce the whole thing seemed
to me ! Nevertheless, I was inconsistent enough
to actually enjoy whatever the others were
getting.
Having purchased my discharge by the pay-
ment of $100, I was at liberty to leave at my
pleasure; but I was offered a lucrative position
in the officers' mess, which was one of the best
in the British army. This I accepted and
held for a year.
My furlough, after a short visit to Ireland,
I spent in Oxford. The University and its
colleges and the town had a wonderful fascina-
tion for me, but I think, as I look back at it
and try to sum up its influence upon me, that
the personality of the "Master of Balliol" —
Benjamin Jowett — was the greatest and the
most permanent thing I received.
I had been striving for years to slough off
from my tongue a thick Irish brogue, and
had not succeeded very well. The elegance
and the chasteness of Jowett's English did more
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for me in this respect than years of pruning. I
have never heard such English, and behind
this master language of a master mind, there
was a man, a gentleman! I wrote Dr. Jowett
a note one day, asking for an interview. It
may have been the execrable handwriting that
interested him; but I had a most polite note in
return stating the hour at which he would be
glad to see me. I remember attempting in a
very awkward, childish way to explain to him
something of my ambition to make progress
in my studies, and how poorly prepared I was
and how handicapped in various ways.
He arose from his seat, took down a book from a
shelf, consulted it and put it back, and then he
told me in a few words of a Spanish soldier who
had entered the University of Paris at the age
of thirty-three and become an influence that
was world-wide. This, by way of encour-
agement. The model held up had very little
effect upon me, but this personal interview,
this close touch with the man who himself was
a model, was a great inspiration to me, and
remains with me one of the most pleasant mem-
ories of my life.
My first lecture was given in the Town Hall
at my home town in Ireland, during the first
week of my after-campaign furlough. The
townspeople filled the hall, more out of curios-
ity than to hear the lecture, for when the
cobbler's son had left the town a few years
before he couldn't read his own name. The
Vicar presided. Ministers of other denomina-
tions were present. The Young Men's Chris-
tian Association was very much in evidence
at the lecture. School teachers of the Sunday-
school where I taught were present. The class
of little boys that I had gathered off the street
was there; but personally I had gone after the
newsboys of the town, and I had arranged that
they should sit in a row of front seats. Indeed,
I bribed some of them to be present.
My lecture was on Gordon and Khartoum.
I described our life on the desert and told some-
thing of the war-game as I had seen it played.
At the close of the lecture, the usual perfunctory
vote of thanks was moved, and several prom-
inent men of the town made the seconding
of the vote an excuse for a speech. Curiously
enough, I had had an experience with one of
these men when I was a newsboy, and in my
reply to this vote of thanks, I told the story:
"One winter's night when I was selling
papers on these streets — I think I was about
twelve years of age — I knocked at a man's
door and asked if he wanted a paper. The
streets were covered with snow and slush, and
I was shoeless and very cold. The man of
the house opened the door himself; something
must have disturbed him mentally, for when
he saw that it was a newsboy, he took me by
the collar and threw me into the gutter. My
papers were spoiled, and my rags soaked with
slush and water.
" I picked myself up and came back to the
window, through which I saw a bright fire
on an open hearth, and around it the man's
family. I don't think I said any bad words,
nor do I think I was very angry; but I cer-
tainly was sad and I made up my mind at the
window that that man would some day be sorry
for an unnecessary act of cruelty. I am glad
that the gentleman is present to-night" — a
deep silence and breathlessness pervaded the
audience — " for I am sure that he is sorry.
But here are the newsboys of the town. They
are my invited guests to-night. I want to say
to the townspeople that the only kindly hand
ever laid on my head was the Vicar's. It is
too late now to help me — I am beyond your
reach; but these boys are here, and they are
serving you with papers and earning a few
pennies to appease hunger or clothe their
bodies, and I want you to be kind to them."
After the lecture the man who had thrown
me in the gutter came to me. He had not the
slightest idea that he was the man, but he said:
. " What a dastardly shame! "
I gripped him by the hand and said, "You,
my brother, are the man who did it." I
tightened my grip, and said, "And I forgive
you as fully and freely as I possibly can. You
are sorry, and I am satisfied."
I studied in the military schools for a first-
class military certificate of education, passed
my examinations, and got my promotion;
but no sooner had the studies ceased and pro-
motion come than the disgust with military
life increased with such force that it became
unbearable. And so I left the service.
HUNTING A JOB IN NEW YORK
I came to the United States in September,
1888. I came as a steerage passenger. My
first lodging on American soil was with one of
the earth's saints, a little, old Irish woman who
lived on East 106th Street. I had served in
Egypt with her son, and I was her guest.
I had come here with the usual idea that
coming was the only problem — that everybody
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
bad work; that there were no poor people in
this country, no problem of the unemployed.
I was disillusioned in the first few weeks, for
I tramped the streets night and day. I ran
the gamut of the employment agencies and the
" Help Wanted " columns of the papers. It was
while looking for work that I first became
acquainted with the Bowery. It was in the
current of the unemployed that I was swept
there first.
An advertisement in the morning paper
calling for a "bed-hand" led me to a big
lodging-house on the Bowery. They wanted
a man to wash the floors and make up the
beds, and the pay was one dollar a day. I
got in line with the applicants. I was about
the forty-fifth man. Many a time I have
wished that I could understand what was pass-
ing in the clerk's mind when he dismissed me
with a wave of the hand. I thought, perhaps,
that my dismissal meant that he had engaged
a man, but that was not the case. A man two
or three files behind me got the job.
My next attempt led me to a public school
on Greenwich Avenue. The janitor wanted
an assistant. I was so weary with my inactiv-
ity that any kind of a job at any kind of pay
would have been acceptable. The janitor
showed me over the school and told me what
the work was. Finally, he took me to the cellar
where he had piled up in a corner about twenty
loads of ashes. That, of course, was the first
thing to be done, and though the pile looked .
rather discouraging, I stripped to the work and
went at it. My task was to get the ashes out-
side ready for carting away. I had been about
six hours on the job, when I accidentally over-
heard the janitor say to his wife: "Shut your
mouth! I have just got a sucker of a green-
horn to get them out." That was enough.
I got my coat and hat and went over to the
janitor's door; but before I could open my
mouth, his wife said: "What's up? "
"Oh, the job's all right," I replied, "but
what I object to is the way you do your whis-
pering!"
The lowest in the scale of all human em-
ployments is that of canvassing for a
sewing-machine. I did it for two weeks.
My teacher taught me how to canvass a tene-
ment. The janitor is the traditional arch-
enemy of the canvasser. My teaching con-
sisted largely in how to avoid him, circum-
vent him, or exploit him. A Mrs. Smith —
a mythical Mrs. Smith — always lived on the
top floor. I was taught to interview her first;
then I canvassed from the top down.
Selling sewing-machines was a failure, but
out of it came the discovery of a splendid field
for social and religious activity. I was
directed to the Twenty-third Street Y. M. C. A.
There, day after day, I enquired at the Employ-
ment Department until the secretary seemed
tired of the sight of me.
I got ashamed to look at him. One night
I sat in a corner, the picture of dejection and
despair, when a big, broad-shouldered man
sat down beside me.
" You look as if you thought God was dead !"
he said, smiling.
" He appears to be," I replied.
He put his big hand on my shoulder —
looked into my eyes, and drew out of me my
story. I forget what he said; it was brief and
perhaps commonplace, but I went out to walk
the streets full of hope and courage. Before
leaving that night I approached the little man
at the employment desk.
" Did you see that big fellow in a gray suit ? "
"Yes."
"Who is he?"
"Mr. McBurney."
"The man whose name is on your letter-
head?"
"The same."
"Great guns! and to think that I've been
monkeying all these weeks with a man like
you — pardon me, brother! "
Robert McBurney was my friend to the day
of his death. Many a time when out of the
pit, I reminded him of the incident. It was
from the little man at the employment desk of
the Twenty-third Street Y. M. C. A. that I got
my real introduction to business life — if the
vocation of a porter can be called "business."
I became an under-porter in a wholesale
house on Broadway at five dollars a week, and
spent a winter at the job. The head of the
house was a leader of national reputation in his
particular denomination. I was sitting on the
radiator one winter's morning before the store
opened when the chief clerk came in. It was a
Monday morning, and his first words were:
"Well, what did you do yesterday?"
"I taught a Bible Class, led a people's
meeting, and preached once," was my reply.
He looked dumbfounded.
" Do you do that often ? " he asked.
"As often as I get a chance," I answered.
An abiding friendship began that morning
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between us. This man might have been a
member of the firm and a rich man by this
time, but he had a conscience, and it would
not permit him to keep books dishonestly,
which his employers wanted him to do,
and he quit.
My next job was running an elevator in an
office-building on West Twenty-third Street.
It was one of the old-fashioned ice-wagon
variety, jerked up and down by a wire cable.
It gave me a goad opportunity for study. In
the side of the cage I had an arrangement for
my Greek grammar. This, of course, could
not escape the notice of the business men,
and if I was a few seconds late in answering
their bell, they always looked like a thunder-
cloud in the direction of my grammar. One
of my passengers on that elevator was
sympathetic. His name was Bruce Price, an
architect; he was a tall, fine, powerfully built
man, who had a kindly word for me every
morning, and he was the only passenger who
ever deigned to shake hands with me as if I
were a human being.
After that, I mounted a milk-wagon and
served milk in the region of West Fifty-seventh
Street. This drop into the cellars of the well-
to-do gave me contact from another angle
with janitors, janitresses, and servants. I
started at four o'clock every morning and did
not finish until late in the afternoon, but I had
the whole of Sunday off.
The life of a milkman is a busy one, espec-
ially when it is combined with the keeping of
books, but I found time to mumble my Greek
roots as I trotted in and out of the cellars. My
grammar, when weather permitted, was tied
open to a bottle in the cart
From the milk-wagon I went to a publishing
house. They had advertised for a man with
some literary ability, and I had the effrontery
to apply. I drove the milk-cart in front of the
publishing- house door and, with my working
clothes bespattered with milk and grease,
applied personally for the job.
"What are your qualifications?" the mana-
ger asked.
"What kind of work do you want done?"
I asked in reply.
I found that they were going to make a new
dictionary of the English language, but their
method of making it obviated the necessity for
scholarship. They had an 1859 edition of
Webster and a lot of the newer dictionaries, and
Webster was to be the basis of the new one.
We were to crib and transcribe from all the rest
I was the third man employed on the work.
My salary to begin with was ten dollars a
week. After working a month, I had the
temerity to outline a plan for a dictionary which
would necessitate the most profound scholar-
ship in America. This plan was laughed at
at first, but was finally adopted; and it took
seven years, millions of dollars, and hundreds
of the best scholars in the United States and
foreign countries to complete the work. They
raised my salary from $10 a week to $100 a
month; but when an opening came to work
as a missionary among the Bowery lodging
houses at $60 a month, I considered it the
opportunity of a lifetime. And so, in 1890, I
entered my new parish — the Bowery.
HOW COOPERATION HAS ENRICHED
DENMARK
ONCE THE POOREST OF EUROPEAN PEOPLES, THE DANES ARE NOW THE MOST INDE-
PENDENT—AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION THAT MIGHT BE WORKED OUT IN AMERICA
BY
SELDEN SMYSER
A CENTURY ago the Danes were among
the poorest of the peoples of Europe.
To-day their per capita wealth exceeds
that of France, Holland, Norway, Sweden,
Germany, or any other country on the Conti-
nent This great advance is but an index of
an equally great increase which has taken
place in their popular industrial intelligence
and efficiency, and also of the development
of a fine national spirit and social morality.
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HOW COOPERATION HAS ENRICHED DENMARK
Their success has been wrought from a poor
soil under the stimulus of adversity. Den-
mark is a low-lying country between two cold
bodies of water — the Baltic Sea and the
German Ocean, The winters are long, the
growing season short. Much of the soil is
sandy and poor. The Danes undertook
cooperative bacon-curing — one of their impor-
tant industries — only after Germany refused
to admit their live hogs. At an earlier period
they were forced into dairy-farming by the
failure of grain-farming. The reasons for their
success may be roughly classified as follows:
(i) The extensive use made of expert advice.
(2) The granting of aid by the State when the
people have undertaken some worthy enter-
prise for themselves.
(3) Thorough systems of testing market
products and of educating the producers.
(4) The wonderful development of co6per-
ative organizations, and the prevalence of the
codperati ve 'spirit.
(5) The development among the Danes of a
high degree of popular intelligence, a fine
national spirit, and a social morality.
QUICK TO SEEK EXPERT ADVICE
The Danish farmer often prefers to seek
advice from an expert in regard to what many
would consider an ordinary farm matter.
For the breeding of live stock there are three
kinds of experts: for Jutland cattle and sheep,
for horses, and for red Danish cattle and
sheep. There is also a consulting expert in
England.
If several farmers wish to purchase a bull that
will improve their herds, they ask advice of
the Government expert. Even in the breed-
ing of their hogs, the individual farmer is
likely to ask expert advice. The Government
furnishes the services of its experts as readily as
the farmers avail themselves of them, but these
are not sufficient for the demand. The people,
through their cooperative organizations and
federations, through their agricultural societies,
poultry societies, etc., secure expert aid for
themselves in many other ways. The result
of this practice is evident in the rapid improve-
ment of their live-stock and in the steady in-
crease both in the quantity of milk and the
percentage of butter-fat given by cows. In
a number of herds the quantity of milk given
annually by each cow has in a few years been
increased a hundred gallons or more. Even
the (frequently considered) disagreeable task
of milking becomes with them an art to be
studied under an expert. Accordingly, men
who have had years of experience in milking
take lessons in the art of milking according to
the Hageland method — a method which in-
creases the quantity of milk and the percent-
age of butter-fat. This reliance upon the
scientific method and the expert's advice is
shown in the loyalty with which the farmers
adhere to the severe restrictions upon the
individual, often imposed by their creameries,
as to feeding cows, handling milk and milk-
cans, and in their readiness to furnish infor-
mation in regard to their own cattle or hogs.
As a result of this habit of codperating with
the State experts, swine fever, once a serious
matter, has been stamped out of the country.
Everywhere the effort is made to bring the
highest intelligence procurable to bear on the
problem in hand.
Severe personal economy also brings its
results. Herds of cows are not allowed to
wander: each cow is hitched and allowed to
graze a little portion until the portion is eaten
dean. Thus land is made to feed a far larger
number of cows than ours — for loose cattle
trample and destroy more than they eat.
Cows are milked three times a day. At a
certain farm at Kolla-Kolla, each cow has over
its stall a tin plate bearing its record as a
milker and breeder. At the end of the year
the cows whose records are poor are discarded:
while the calves of whatever cows have given
rich and good milk are kept for the farm.
One cow on this farm — by no means a show
cow — produced 500 pounds of butter in a
single year.
THE GOVERNMENT HELPING FARMERS
State aid to agriculture takes numerous other
forms besides the supplying of the services of
experts. There are the usual grants for agri-*
cultural education, for premiums and prizes at
agricultural shows and fairs. There are numer-
ous money grants to voluntary organizations
for the improvement of cattle, poultry, etc.,
and to local and national agricultural societies.
Besides these, there are various prizes, grants,
and loans for the superior cultivation of small
holdings and to ambitious and meritorious
workers in dairies and creameries who desire
technical education.
There are also government loans to those
desiring to purchase small holdings. These
are made at 3 per cent., and the borrower
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repays the original amount in small instal-
ments, running through sixty years. The
Government also lends money to neighborhood
credit-societies or coSperative banks, which
lend again to the farmers on favorable terms
for the purchase of seeds, fertilizers, etc.
In starting cooperative creameries and bacon-
factories, the farmers are able to borrow from
these banks the full amount of money needed to
start their enterprises, on the personal security
of the members, each of whom assumes full
liability for all the debts of the concern,
"jointly and severally." The confidence that
they thus manifest in one another, the courage
of the thrifty folk in assuming such "joint and
several liability," and the confidence of the
bankers in the business ability of the farmers,
all indicate very plainly the presence of fine
qualities of character. State aid thus takes
a wide variety of forms, but the grants are
usually very moderate in amount, and are
bestowed with good judgment rather than
liberality.
It may be said in general that state aid is
granted only where the recipients have shown
a desire and ability to do something really
worthy of encouragement. Small holders who
have shown special skill in farm management
may receive a good implement that is needed, a
pig, or a loan for putting in drainage. They
may receive an allowance so that they may
travel to other parts of the country and visit
well-managed farms. So, each year, between
thirty and forty dairy workers or managers of
bacon factories who have shown special abil-
ity are given grants of money that will enable
them to improve themselves technically by
travel or school study of their line of work.
TEAM-WORK AMONG POULTRY-RAISERS
The Government especially aids the farmers
through the voluntary associations of various
kinds that they form. There are two poultry-
raisers' associations. One has more than four
thousand, the other more than six thousand
members. The fees for membership in these
societies are quite small — less than a dollar —
and entitle the member to receive a fortnightly
paper, to receive the assistance and advice
of the societies' experts, and to purchase at a
very moderate price pure-bred fowls or the
eggs of such fowls. The two societies have
established thirty-eight centres for experimen-
tation and the distribution of pure-bred fowls
and eggs. Both these enterprises receive
government aid — one $1,000, the other $1,500
annually.
Every week a collector goes the rounds,
gathering the eggs and paying market prices for
them. Each producer stamps his eggs with his
own stamp, afterwhich all are sent to the central
packing stations. The sender of stale or dirty
eggs is promptly punished by the society.
After a careful selection each egg is stamped
with the society's brand. This national guar-
antee has raised the price of Danish eggs and
increased the demand for them in the English
market. The mere industries of hen-raising
and egg-collecting bring Denmark $10,000,000
a year and employ thousands of Danes.
The Government makes annual grants to
cooperative horse and cattle-breeding societies,
and to the various societies organized to pro-
mote agriculture in general. This is by no
means a complete list of the worthy enterprises
of individuals and associations that are encour-
aged and aided by the Government, but it
illustrates the methods followed. In brief,
it may be said that there is not so much patern-
alism in it all as fraternalism. The State
is the means through which the Danes aid
themselves and each other. It is not socialism,
but individualism in cooperation.
COOPERATION IN THE CREAMERIES
The cooperative dairy movement began in
1882, and for a few years thereafter more than
one hundred coSperative dairies were set up
every year. At present they number 1,076,
with about 160,000 members. In 1906 they
delivered 4,590,000,000 pounds of milk, which
produced 176,000,000 pounds of butter, valued
at $47,500,000. The growth of Danish trade
in butter, eggs, and bacon since the establish-
ment of codperation is significant. In 1881
it totalled $11,840,000; in 1906, $77,800,000.
In butter alone, since 1881, Danish exports
have multiplied nine times.
The Danes, we have said, systematically
test the quality of the chief market products,
and educate their producers in methods of
producing them. Their system of testing the
work of their creameries and bacon-factories
would be galling if it were not self-imposed.
Every two weeks an exhibition of butter takes
place at the government laboratories at Copen-
hagen. Creamery managers in various places
are asked by telegraph to send in samples of
the butter on hand. All the samples are care-
fully judged under restrictions, so that no
Digitized by VjOOQlC
12288
HOW COOPERATION HAS ENRICHED DENMARK
judge can know from what creamery the butter
comes. The decisions of the judges are sent
to the creamery managers, who are advised as
to the best methods of correcting defects in
their product. The work of each creamery is
thus tested three times a year. Experts also
visit butter merchants, test the butter found in
stock, and advise the makers of any defect
in their product and how to correct it. The
managers of the bacon factories may at any
time receive a telegram asking them to send to
Copenhagen some of the sides of bacon that
they have ready for shipment to Great Britain.
Their product is carefully examined and
judged, and they are informed whether the
defects, if any, are due to their methods or to
the breeding and quality of the pigs.
The Danes no longer send their live hogs
abroad. They prefer to keep for Danish labor
the employment in killing, curing, and packing
them. As a result, pigs, which a few years ago
brought Denmark only $7,500,000, now bring
$25,000,000. The Dane knows enough eco-
nomics to understand that the greatest amount
of profit and employment is in the finished
article and not in the raw material, and that the
nation which sends away all its raw material
for a more skilled nation to finish is doomed.
COOPERATION STOPPED EMIGRATION
The part which cooperation has played in the
development of Danish agriculture, Danish
export trade, and Danish institutions, is a very
large one indeed. Not only has emigration
practically ceased, but since its introduction, in
1881, the urban population has almost doubled,
while the rural population has increased by 10
per cent.
They have many organizations which are
strictly cooperative in the narrow and technical
sense of the term, and many others which
are animated by the same spirit. Merely
to enumerate them all would take considerable
space. For one, the Danish Cooperative Egg
Export Association, of Copenhagen, has 30,000
members, distributed among 500 local societies.
There are sixty cooperative societies for bee-
keepers, societies for the purchase of seeds and
fertilizers and agricultural machinery, for the
insurance of stock, for the purchase of feeding-
stuffs, etc., etc. There are cooperative com-
panies that insure the farmers against loss
through the condemnation of hogs because of
disease.
The local cooperative organizations are
united into numerous federations through
which they codperate with one another and
greatly increase the efficiency of all. The
farmers' supplies are largely purchased at
wholesale in large quantities through these
federations, and are distributed very econom-
ically. What the farmer has to sell is similarly
sold in large quantities in the best market by
skilled business men. The market price for
the Danish farmers' chief products is no such
uncertain thing as it is in this country. Com-
mittees of experts representing various butter
interests meet once a week and fix the price of
butter for the week. They take prices in
Great Britain and Germany as the basis, and,
correcting these according to the "feeling of
the market," they fix the price for Denmark,
and usually the price thus fixed remains con-
stant for several weeks. A similar method is
used in fixing the price of hogs for the country.
Because the Danish farmer has so much
business intelligence and ability, he has cre-
ated business organizations — the cooperative
•associations — that relieve him of many of the
commercial details of his business. These
things are given over to the experts of the
cooperative societies and the federations.
The farmer is left greater freedom to increase
his knowledge and skill as a producer and is
able, because of his partnership with many
others in a really large business and because of
his immediate share in the nation's export trade,
to take a really large view of commercial affairs.
And especially he has made of farming an
exact science. " He is by nature and training a
serious man, strictly sober, very attentive to
details, anxiously watching for every new im-
provement in farming," — a Scotch report says.
Quietly and unobserved, he has been doing
as much for human government and society
as for his own export trade, and for the improve-
ment of his own cattle and butter and bacon.
The Danes' success, achieved largely through
agriculture, has led to much study and inves-
tigation by Europeans of their methods and
organization. In 1904, a Scotch commission
composed of between thirty and forty agri-
culturalists made a tour of investigation in
Denmark and published a report which is an
excellent piece of work. Ireland has had at
least two elaborate reports dealing with Danish
methods and organizations. Most of the coun-
tries of Europe, in fact, in dealing with agri-
culture, are following along the lines marked
out by the Danes.
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STORIES OF MEN IN ACTION
TO-DAY, the man who is most closely
watched in the financial world is Mr.
Edwin Hawley. Men know that he,
and he alone of the railroad administrators,
has a little of the genius that was Harriman's.
They do not expect that he is to succeed to the
Harriman throne, but they do know that if
there is any one man who can even faintly
approximate the genius for organization and
the militant spirit that made Mr. Harriman,
Hawley is the man.
One day in 1904 the directors of the Colorado
& Southern Railroad met at the office of Hall-
garten & Co., to discuss important mat-
ters. A crisis seemed to be impending.
There had been rumors and market fluctua-
tions of a disturbing sort. It was pretty well
known that Mr. Hawley and his friends con-
trolled the road, and that they had every inten-
tion of selling it if the price was right. But
earnings had dwindled, and the last of the
dividends was in peril.
After a long time, the door of the directors'
room opened, and Mr. Hawley came out,
talking to Mr. Frank Trumbull. A reporter
met him:
"What did you do, Mr. Hawley?"
"Didn't do anything," said Mr. Hawley.
"The dividend?"
"Oh, I forgot — we cut that out!" said
the master of the road.
It was not a pose; it was perfectly natural.
To his mind, the passing of a dividend is not
a matter of moment, even when, as in this case,
it seemed to put further away the possibility
of selling his share of the stock. It takes a good
deal more than a dividend to ruffle the serene
composure of Edwin Hawley.
He will never die of worry, this new captain
of the rail. As Mr. Harriman was, Mr. Hawley
isagraduate and a past-master of the Wall Street
game, with all its quick and desperate turns
and twists; but, unlike him, he never meets
the shock with tense strained mind and
nerves at the breaking point. In the worst
hours of his worst campaigns, men met him
smiling as he always smiles, quiet in speech,
lacking in any form of bluster or bravado,
debonair — a wholly charming man to his
friends and a wholly baffling person to his
enemies.
One day, he met an open affront in the
offices of the Union Pacific, and from Mr.
Harriman. Men say he forgot himself, and
raged. At any rate, he retired to his office in
the Broad Exchange Building and began lay-
ing plans. Some few months before, Mr. W.
B. Leeds — the dashing, if not too wise
ally of the Moores in the Rock Island
coterie — had talked over with him the possi-
bility of capturing the Chicago & Alton road,
then held by Mr. Harriman and Messrs.
Kuhn, Loeb & Co. At that time, other
counsels had prevailed.
Now, in the heat of temper, Mr. Hawley
plotted out the details of the raid. He found
the others ready and willing, for they, too,
were seeking vengeance. The stock market
end of the matter was left largely to the
hand of Edwin Hawley. He worked with
John W. Gates, just as, some years be-
fore, he had worked with the same man
in one of the most celebrated raids in
financial history, the capture of the Louis-
ville & Nashville from under the guns of
the House of Morgan.
For many months, they quietly gathered
in the stock. The great bankers knew that
Gates and Hawley were speculating in Alton,
but they had no idea what it meant. The final,
flat announcement, made on the tickers under
the head "Harriman loses Alton," came like
a stroke of lightning.
Hawley would not talk. Neither would he
talk when men caught him playing with Daniel
Sully in a cotton market full of fire; nor when,
again, a random gust of chance blew aside the
curtain and revealed him — as well as E. H.
Harriman — trifling with Colonel Greene in
Mexican copper stocks; nor when, again, the
spot-light caught him in the middle of the
stage at the time of the contest for the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company.
In his day, he has been the stormy petrel of
the financial world. Nobody pretends that
he does not love excitement. There has
hardly been a conflict in the past ten years
in which "Ed Hawley" failed to ride with
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12290
STORIES OF MEN IN ACTION
the foremost. Usually, he has been with the
attacking party — and with the winners.
II
Mr. Alexander Irvine, the story of whose
heroic and devoted life is proving to be an
inspiration to many people, has run many
risks in his work among the outcasts. The
following story of mission work in the Mis-
souri River "Bottoms" was recently told by
him to a friend:
"A period of mental depression was fol-
lowed by a period of poverty — of destitution,
rather. I was physically unable to work with
my hands and I had not yet tried to earn money
by my pen. I was often so reduced by hun-
ger that I could scarcely walk.
"One night, after a few days' involuntary
fast, I found in my hut two cents. To the
city I went and bought two bananas; one I
ate on the way home and the other I put in
my hip-pocket
"There were no streets, no lights, no side-
walks in that region. As I came to a rail-
road arch on the edge of the squatter com-
munity, I saw a figure emerge from the deep
shadows. I knew instantly that I was to be
held up, but as life was rather cheap down
there, I was not sure what would accompany
the assault. A second figure emerged, and
when I came to within a few yards of them
I whipped the banana from my pocket, pointed
it as one would aim a revolver, and said:
'"Move a muscle, either of you, and I'll
blow your brains out!'
"'Gee/ one of them muttered, 'it's Mr.
Irvine!'
" They belonged to a gang of young ' toughs'
who lived in a dug-out on the banks of the
river. Some of them had brothers in my
school. There were about a dozen of them.
They had hinted several times that they
would clean me out when they had time, but
they had delayed their plan.
"I took these 'toughs' to my hut, and we
talked for hours. When I produced the
banana, they enjoyed the joke immensely,
and invited me to their 'hole.' Next eve-
ning they gave me a reception, and, I suppose,
fed me on stolen property. They had a
stove, a few old mattresses, and some dry-
goods boxes. I held their attention that
night for four hours, while I told the story
of Jean VaJ Jean.
"After that, these fellows protected the
chapel and made themselves useful in their
way. In less than a year afterward, half of
them had gone to honest work; the rest went
the way of the transgressor — to the peniten-
tiary and the reform school."
Ill
Mr. Elihu Vedder, the American painter
whose reminiscences will appear in the winter
numbers of this magazine, tells the following
story of his youth:
"My escape from teetotalism happened at
school. It was not so much an escape from
that as it was from breaking the pledge.
" The lecturer was very young, but he knew
his business. He first commenced by show-
ing how much alcohol is contained in such
a seemingly innocent beverage as beer. By
means of an alembic, he drew from a pint of
beer what seemed to me a quart of spirits; this
left to our imaginations what quantity must
be contained in the fiery and fatal whiskey.
This was an appeal to the mind.
"The next was to the eye. He now dis-
played what appeared to be a series of land-
scapes; these were views of the drunkard's
stomach, showing the effects of alcohol from
the first social glass with its rosy eruption, to
the fatal fiery ending. This last picture was
truly terrible, a perfect volcano, with great
streams of red-hot lava running down, and
all it needed was the reflection of the flames
in a bay, and the black lines of shipping against
it, and a moon, to make it a perfect picture
of an eruption of Vesuvius. We shivered.
" He made his last appeal to the heart. The
drunkard, abandoned by all but his faithful
dog, reduced to abject poverty, staggers one
freezing night into a shed and then sleeps the
sleep of drunkenness. Saved from perish-
ing by his faithful friend, what does he do on
awakening, when he feels the insatiate craving
of the fiend? His blood-shot eye falls on the
dog and he kills him that he may sell his skin
for yet another drink.
"We were in tears, as we held out our
hands, clamoring for the pledge. The lecturer
searched in vain his pockets; he had forgotten
It, but promised to send it in the morning.
" But the night brought council. We talked
it over. The near approach of Christmas and
New Year's and the memory of currant wine
and liquorish lollipops induced us to postpone
the signing, and I at least was saved from
inevitable back-sliding."
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The World's Work
WALTER H. PAGE, Editor
CONTENTS FOR DECEMBER, 1909
THE PRESIDENTS OF TWO SISTER REPUBLICS - - - Frontispiece
THE MARCH OF EVENTS— An Editorial Interpretation - - - 12293
(Wilh full-page portraits of Rt. Hon. David Lloyd-George, Baron Shibusawa, the late Prince I to. Dr. Charles
W. Stiles, Dr. George Washburn, Mr. N. O. Nelson, Mr. Meredith Nicholson, Mr. Wm. Loeb, Jr., and photo-
graphs of the latest type of American sea-going submarine, the fastest American torpedo-boat destroyer, the
most powerful American battleship, the most powerful locomotive in the world, two " Fliers " in an informal
race, and the Benet-Mercie Gun.)
A GLAD CHRISTMAS THE UNITED STATES BANK AGAIN
THE PRESIDENT'S PLAN OF ACTION COMFORT IN OLD AGE BY GOVERNMENT HELP
NOTES MADE ON THE JOURNEY WITH MR. TAFT A GOOD RESULT OF THE CORPORATION TAX
WATER-POWERS-ACTION NOW OR TROUBLE LATER A NEW ARGUMENT FOR PERMANENT PEACE
MR. CRANE'S DISMISSAL DREADNOUGHTS HAVE ALREADY BROUGHT WAR
PROPPING THE OPEN DOOR PEACE FOR BUSINESS REASONS
THE ENFEEBLED SUPREME COURT , A NEW EMANCIPATION FOR THE SOUTH
DR. COOK'S DIFFICULT POSITION THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND
AFTER MR. HARRIMAN HOW ANARCHISTS ARE MADE
HINTS OF GOOD INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP AMERICAN COLLEGES IN ASIA
AN ODD METHOD OF INVESTMENT - - - - - - 12310
THE WESTERNER AND HIS TROLLEY LINE .... I2322
HOW TO TELL A GOOD ACCIDENT POLICY FROM A BAD ONE 12324
MIKE HALLORAN, OPTIMIST - W. I. Scandlin 12326
THE CONFLICT OF COLOR - - - B. L. Putnam Weale 12327
IV. The World's Black Problem
THE WAY TO HEALTH ------ The Patient 12333
The Consumptive's Holy Grail
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS (Illustrated) - - - James J. Hill 12338
II. From Minnesota to the Sea
A SCHOOL WITH A CLEAR AIM - - - John Foster Carr 12362
FROM THE BOTTOM UP (Illustrated) - - Alexander Irvine 12365
VI. The Battered Hulks of the Bowery
A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS (Illustrated) Leila Mechlin 12379
MY BUSINESS LIFE (I) ------ N. O. Nelson 12387
WHAT A CENTRAL BANK WOULD DO - - Robert L. McCabe 12394
HOMES IN WASTE PLACES ----- Bolton Hall 12398
MEN IN ACTION ----.--._ I2400
TERMS: $3.00 a year; single copies, 25 cents. For Foreign Postage add $1.28; Canada, 60 cents.
Published monthly. Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved. Entered at the Post-office at New York, N. Y., as second-class mail matter.
Country Life in America The Garden Magazine-Farming
15 1 1 H«y worth Building DOUBLILDAY, PACE/ & COMPANY, 133 East Sixteenth Strctt
F. N. Doubleday, President
Walter H. Pace J
H. S. Houston f
Vice-Presidents
H. W. Lanier, Secretary
S. A. Everitt, Treasurer
I r\r\rs\o
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(-DEC 2 ISJ.--7
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WORLdSWORK
DECEMBER, 1909
Volume XIX
Number 2
3be flDarcb of Events
THE farmers have had a good year;
wage-earners are again employed, on
a rising scale of prices, too, in many
kinds of work; most of the great workshops .
— steel, for instance — are busy to their
utmost, although some of the cotton-mills
must yet curtail their product; the railroads
are loaded with prosperous traffic, and the
distributing machinery of the commercial
world is active. From the farmer to the com-
sumer and from the producer of raw material
along the whole line to the retail merchant,
the channels of activity are open. Building
has been begun again; cities are growing
in every part of the country; and land values
continue to rise. All these are immediate and
material reasons for a glad Christmas.
Nor are reasons of other sorts lacking. It
is hardly worth saying that we arc at peace
with all the world, for any conceivable breach
of peace with us is so remote and unreal that
it would hardly have place even in a formal
inventory of our fears and dangers. Diplo-
matic differences are arising and will arise,
chiefly about our tariff schedules and our
restriction of Asiatic immigration; but these
demand for their settlement no sterner qualities
than skill and fair dealing:
Internal problems of government and serious
questions of politics and of policies do confront
us. Important tasks in public and commercial
morals press on us, too. Great frauds by
importers and custom-house officers, the organ-
ized degradation of women in our large cities,
waste in public money — the ever-mounting
budgets of cities and states of the nation —
Copyright. 1909. by Doubleday,
remind us that there is no substitute for the
sterner civic virtues. There is, in fact, a
basis of hope in our discovery and knowledge of
these evils. Mere knowledge of them will
not remove them, but they would never be
dealt with so long as we should remain indif-
ferent.
He is not a wise man who should slur the
immoralities and dangers that prosperity
permits and perhaps encourages; for the
character of the American people is put to
a new and somewhat harder test every step
that we take in national progress.
We have, then, much to be grateful for —
very much indeed — many things to be proud
of, and some to be ashamed of.
The best mood in which to welcome Christ-
mas and to profit by the infinite good fortune
that it brings to us and to our country, is a
mood of thankfulness tempered with a resolute
regard for the sturdy virtues of simpler times
— thrift, vigorous honesty, home-making mor-
ality, and conscientious attention to public
duties.
This year will be a memorable year in
history for two reasons if for no others. It is
the year of the discovery of the North Pole.
Commander Peary's name is likely to be
familiar to a great number of people a longer
period in the future than any man now living.
If this distinction be disputed at all it will
be disputed probably by the Messrs. Wright,
whose names will be associated with the making
of human flight successful. Any man of
imagination gets a certain thrill from merely
living at so interesting a time.
Page Si Co. All rights reserved.
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THE RIGHT HONORABLE DAVID LLOYD-GEORGE
BRITISH CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, WHO IS THE LEADER IN THE STRUGGLE
OVER THE BUDGET THAT THREATENS A SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND
[Ste " Tht Marth <v
W^fi^CK3gL<
DR. CHARLES W. STILES
WHOSE DISCOVERY OF THE HOOKWORM IN THE SOUTHERN STATES
OPENED THE WAY FOR A NEW ERA OF HEALTH THERE
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Courtesy «f Mtstn. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
DR. GEORGE WASHBURN, OF CONSTANTINOPLE
AN AMERICAN EDUCATOR WHO HAS ROUNDED OUT HALF A CEN-
TURY OF NOTABLE WORK IN ROBERT COLLEGE, ON THE BOSPHORUS
[Se< " The March */ Bvtutt," f(tgt np9]
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Copyright, by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
THE LATE PRINCE ITO
JAPAN'S LEADING STATESMAN, WHO WAS ASSASSINATED BY A KOREAN
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BARON SHIBUSAWA
THE PRINCIPAL INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL LEADER OF JAPAN, THE HEAD OF THE COMMISSION
OF COMMERCIAL MEN WHO HAVE BEEN VISITING THE UNITED STATES FOR THREE MONTH8
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Photograph by V*uderweydct N. Y.
MR. WM. LOEB, JR., COLLECTOR OF THE PORT OF NEW YORK
WHO IS VIGOROUSLY PROSECUTING CERTAIN IMPORTERS AND CUSTOMS OFFI-
CIALS WHO HAVE BEEN SYSTEMATICALLY DEFRAUDING THE GOVERNMENT
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A SUPERIORITY OF THE BENET-MERCIE OVER THE MAXIM
FIVE MULES ARE ALLOTTED TO EACH MAXIM; THIS MULE CARRIES TWO BENET-MERCIE
AUTOMATICS, TWO EXTRA BARRELS, AND 1,200 ROUNDS OF AMMUNITION. AN INFANTRY-
MAN CARRIED THE GUN AND 300 ROUNDS OF AMMUNITION OVER A DISTANCE OF FIVE MILES
AN OFFICER FIRING THE BENET-MERCIE GUN -*
IT CAN SHOOT 400 TIMES A MINUTE, AND IS A WEAPON FOR INFANTRY AND CAVALRY, SINCE IT WEIGHS
ONLY 22 POUNDS. THE NEW AUTOMATIC GUN IS FIRED FROM THE GROUND, HAVING SUPPORTS BARELY
LONG ENOUGH TO HOLD IT AT A CONVENIENT HEIGHT. THE GUNNER TAKES A RECLINING POSITION
[Stt " Tkt Mmrek 4/ Events," peg* n&4\
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THE LATEST TYPE OF AMERICAN SEA-GOING SUBMARINE
THE U. S. S. "NARWHAL," WHICH CAN GO 150 MILES UNDER WATER AT A SPEED OF II KNOTS
AN HOUR, AND MUCH FARTHER ON THE SURFACE WITH A MAXIMUM SPEED OF 1 4 KNOTS
Copyright. 1909. l>y N. L. Stcbbins, Boston
THE FASTEST AMERICAN TORPEDO-BOAT DESTROYER
THE U. S. S. "REID" MAKING 34J KNOTS ON ITS TRIAL TRIP. IT IS
FITTED WITH FIVE TURBINES WHICH DRIVE THREE PROPELLERS
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MR. MEREDITH NICHOLSON
WHOSE NEW BOOK, "THE LORDS OF HIGH DECISION," IS ONE OF THE LEADING NOVELS OF THE YEAR
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MR. N.
NELSON, OF ST. LOUIS
AN ADVOCATE OF THE PROFIT-SHARING SYSTEM WHOSE BUSINESS
HAS GROWN UNDER HIS PLAN TO A VOLUME OF $3,000,000 A YEAR
[Set "My Rutin*
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NOTES MADE ON THE JOURNEY WITH MR. TAFT 12307
THE PRESIDENT'S PLAN OF ACTION
THE President has come to be the only
representative of the whole people in the
Government, and this is Mr. Taft's conception
of the office. It is in the light of this concep-
tion that his long journey is to be understood.
The months that a less conscientious man
might have regarded as vacation months, he
took to meet the people to explain to them the
policies that he wishes to carry out — in
general, to take them into his confidence and
to ask their cooperation. And that task he
has done with frankness. His Message to
Congress can hardly contain a surprise —
certainly no surprise about any domestic
policy. He has in effect read his Message
to the people beforehand. He has done even
more than that — he has outlined his Adminis-
tration as far as he can foresee it. Judged in
this way, the journey has been a pleasant and
noteworthy success.
His characteristic and conscientious wish to
tell the people of different parts of the country
frankly, face-to-face, wherein he differed from
them about the several items of his large
programme brought home to every community
the principle that every section of the country
and every faction of his party should be
willing to sacrifice something for the sake of
a general unity of action. That is to say,
those who wish further reductions of duties
should be content with present reductions in
order to obtain better regulation of corpora-
tions; and those who object to Mr. Aldrich's
leadership in the Senate should put up with it
in order to obtain more money for reclamation,
for waterway improvement, and for other plans
that can be carried out only by united party
action.
This is the President's working plan; and
he starts about the large constructive tasks of
his Administration with the hope and expecta-
tion that his party will work together for them.
Like other plans, it is good if it succeed.
The danger of it is that what is meant to
please all factions may hold none. Successful
popular government is built upon compromises.
That princip'e is as sound as it is necessary.
The only practical question is, in making
compromises, who shall surrender most?
II
If Mr. Taft fail by following this principle,
the failure will be his party's rather than his
own. The misunderstandings that he has thus
far suffered have been by men who regard his
party as less responsible to the people than he
regards it. His view is that if the people
and the states send Republicans to the Senate
and to the House, when they send him to the
White.House, it is his duty to work with thetn.
If they are bad men, it is the people's and the
party's fault, not his. At any rate, he must
work with them if he accomplish any large
volume of results.
It is a good plan if Mr. Taft succeed in
inducing or in forcing the party to do what he
and it are pledged to do. But if one faction
drive any other important faction into revolt -^
what then?
NOTES MADE ON THE J0TONEY WITH MK. TAFT
LEANING on the railing of Glacier
Point, 3,200 feet above the Yosemite
Valley and 3,500 miles from the seat of gov-
ernment, President Taft was very happy. He
had then been traveling twenty-four days,
and had crossed thirteen states, leaving in
most of them something for the people to
think about.
In his speeches from Boston to Seattle, he
had told what the Administration hopes to do
and had defended the making of the Payne-
Aldrich Tariff bill. '
Mr. Taft, on this trip, has laid before the
people in carefully prepared speeches, which
he read, the Message that he will sfend t6
Congress. He purposely refrained from read-
ing the newspapers, and he did not try to feel
the pulse of the public. The only Impression
of popular feeling that reached him during hii
journey was along the lines of parade and al
the* public addresses; and because of his win-
ning personality that was most pleasant
He was happy, and refused to worry — if
he ever worries. When he gets home he be-
lieves that the whole people will have thought
over carefully what he said ahdTie-will get at
the White House a well-digested consensus'of
public opinion. That is why he has not read
the papers nor allowed politicians to talk
politics to him. He doesn't want the first,
but the second thought
II
The only two policies announced by the
President in his speeches that were popular
in the localities in which they were announced
were the ship-subsidy plan and the statement
that he will carry out the Roosevelt policies.
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12308
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
His declaration for a ship subsidy, made on the
Pacific Coast, met with approval there, and
the promise to follow in Roosevelt's footsteps
has been popular everywhere.
But Boston was not enthusiastic about a
Central Bank; Chicago did not enthuse over
a labor speech, while it expected something
about the tariff; and Milwaukee was not
excited by a* discussion of postal savings-
banks. That city, too, was waiting for an
explanation of his signing the tariff bill, and all
Wisconsin is in a fight between the regular
Republicans, or "standpatters," and the
" Insurgents " — " Republicans with excep-
tions," as the President described them.
When he was at Winona, Minn., the home
of Representative Tawney, he delivered his
explanation of the Tariff Act; and, assuming
the defensive, he said that he had signed
the bill to insure party solidarity; then the
Progressive Republicans of the Middle West
began to drive in the wedge that they expect
to split the party.
Then, in Des Moines, the home of Governor
Cummins, President Taft spoke of his plan
of railroad rate regulation, which is not nearly
so radical as that proposed by Senator Cum-
mins and agreed to by a large part of Iowa;
and in Denver he put the income-tax aside
as a last resort when the country is in extremis,
while Colorado, regardless of party, wants an
income-tax. Thus he purposely chose sub-
jects on which he knew that the localities
where he was speaking did not agree with him,
and he left his ideas for reflection and dis-
cussion. He refused to hear what the people
think of his utterances until he returned to
Washington.
HI
The President's winning personality (and
prosperity) made the 13,000-mile journey a
great success, so far as it may be judged from
a car-window and from talks with men
snatched as one snatches a sandwich at a rail-
road lunch-counter. Any one traveling with the
President is in one atmosphere all the time,
and he cannot stop to hear what is said after
the Presidential party has departed. But the
welcome by the people that began with polite
receptions grew, after the Middle West was
passed, to enthusiasm. There is no doubt
that Mr. Taft gained in popularity by the
trip, and that his popularity will last as long
as the crops are good. The people, par-
ticularly of the West, have ceased to blame the
weather, as they once did, for all misfortunes.
If something (tire happens to the grain and
fruit crops in the next three years, the tariff
will be blamed, and Mr. Taft will be "the
goat"
In the meantime, the charming personality
of the President has had the same effect on the
crowds that it has on individuals who meet
him. He himself said in one of his speeches:
"I think that personal touch with the people
by those whom you honor by delegating
authority to them temporarily is a good
thing all around so that you may know,
when I make my mistakes and they are
represented to you with a great deal of
emphasis, that I am still a poor mortal,
praying for assistance and hoping that you
will forgive human error." This was said
(on several occasions) with such frankness
and with so "human" a smile that the audi-
ence of diversified political opinions rose to
the sentiment as one man.
IV
Personality and prosperity have won. Not
in a quarter of a century have there been such
crops as this year. Automobiles are as plenti-
ful in proportion to population on the prairies
of Kansas as on Broadway. The state of
Washington has a greater proportion of motor
cars to population than Brookline, Mass.,
which is said to be the richest city or suburb
in the world. Who, then, cares about the
tariff?
Only the Middle West And the test of its
sentiment is to come at next year's election
of Congressmen. The progressive, or "insur-
gent" Republicans in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska,
and the Dakotas will put up separate tickets,
if they are not strong enough to nominate men
of their liking in the regular conventions. If
they are thus defeated at the polls, the Pro-
gressives declare that they will vote for a
Democratic Presidential candidate in 1912.
Every one of the insurgents is earnest in that
purpose now, but they come of a stock that
has voted the Republican ticket for three gen-
erations. In most of these states the name
"Democrat" still suggests "rebel," and those
who have lived among the people of the Middle
West have little expectation that the present
bitterness over the tariff bill can move even an
"insurgent" Republican to vote the Demo-
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THE WATER-POWERS— ACTION NOW OR TROUBLE LATER 12309
cratic ticket — especially if the crops are
good in the meantime.
Mr. Tait developed his talent for preaching.
In the campaign before his election, nothing
so irritated him as the attack on him because
he is a Unitarian. It angered him that his
religious belief should be made campaign mate-
rial; and, since he became President, he has
made it a point at every opportune occasion
to express his belief in the brotherhood of man
as the best possible religion. In one of his
speeches he summed up his ideas on this sub-
ject, saying:
"There was a time in religious history when
the man who was in control and had his own
theological theory to work out, worked it out by
breaking every one into believing it or else cutting
off the head or burning the body of the gentleman
who didn't agree with him. One church and
then another, as it got the chance, took that
method of introducing religion into the mind and
soul and body of the person thus offered up; but
after a time there crept into the beliefs and articles
of all religions the idea that the way to have
religion prosper was to be gende with views that
were contrary to the creed of any particular
religion. That method introduced a broad toler-
ance of all creeds, and let religion speak for itself,
gendy, with a message of good-will to humanity."
Politically, the trip disclosed the fact that
Mr. Tait is a Federalist, rivaling Hamilton
and out-Roosevelting Roosevelt. The cen-
tral bank plan was an indication of this; but,
when the President made his Seattle speech,
saying that Alaska should become a colony
governed by a Commission, the effect of his
training in the Philippines and in handling
Cuban and Panama affairs was startlingly
apparent
THE WATER-POWERS — ACTION NOW OS
TROUBLE LATER
CONCERNING the much-talked-about
monopoly of water-power, two things are
certain: Congress must take quick action to
protect the falls on public lands and in navi-
gable streams from monopoly; and the states
must adopt laws and regulations that protect
the people, within proper limits, from the
monopoly of what is fast coming to be a
necessity.
For the industrial growth of the people in
many regions depends upon the development
of water-power and its use at reasonable
prices. If it be developed without regulation,
the industries dependent upon it will be at
the mercy of power companies which will be
able to make or to break whom they choose.
If the water-power be developed under
wise regulation, the power companies will do
an inestimable service to the communities
which they serve and yet be prohibited from
hindering the normal development of industries.
But if too repressive legislation and regula-
tion be imposed on private enterprise, the
power will not be developed. These are the
fundamental propositions underlying the
subject
As regards the public lands it is necessary
for Congress to act quickly. Else action will
be too late to save these powers for the public
good. Under the last Administration, Secre-
tary Garfield withdrew from public entry a
vast deal of land which included many valuable
power sites, because, under the law, as it
now is, these water-powers can pass into
private ownership without regulation and in
perpetuity and in no other way. The law is
defective. It was made before the value of
these powers was known. The Government
can do nothing but hold them or give them
away without power ever hereafter to impose
any regulation whatever.
These water-powers ought neither to be
given away nor withheld from development
Neither the law nor the needs of the country
will allow them to be held inactive much
longer by Executive withdrawal, and President
Taft intimated at Spokane that he will not
hold them after this Congress adjourns.
The question, therefore, must be decided now
— by this Congress. If the present law be
allowed to stand, the valuable power sites of
the public domain will pass for nothing, and
without regulation, into the hands of the
exploiting companies; and the public must take
its chances of their enlightened management
or oppression, with no redress.
It is not hard to see what the result will be
if these sites be given away without restriction.
Some power companies will charge excessive
rates. This conduct will provoke unjust restric-
tions at last, and we shall have a period of dis-
couraging and perhaps confiscating legislation,
as we had with regard to the railroads.
II
The responsibility for the proper use of the
water-power of the public domain and on
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123 IO
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
navigable rivers elsewhere rests with Congress.
The responsibility for the proper use of other
water-power sites rests with the states.
By regulative laws or by the granting of
limited franchises they can maintain the
industrial freedom of these people and prevent
monopolies of this power. There is no such
definite situation that calls for state action as
the situation with regard to the public lands
calls for Congressional action. Yet the funda-
mental facts are the same. However slow
or fast the inevitable movement toward a
monopoly of this power is proceeding, if not
forbidden by local laws it will come in time.
Wisconsin has adopted a plan that seems to
conserve and* to compel a wise and fair use
of water-powers with not only a good return
to private capital but with many definite
advantages to its owners.
MR. CRANE'S DISMISSAL
MR. CHARLES R. CRANE, who was on
his way as our Minister to China, was
recalled on the eve of his departure from San
Francisco; and, after a conference with Secre-
tary Knox at Washington, his resignation was
accepted — without a satisfying explanation to
the public. The impression was permitted to
be made that Mr. Crane had talked too freely,
especially about China's backwardness, and
perhaps in sympathy with China about the Jap-
anese-Chinese treaties. But his rude dismissal
did far more to emphasize such delicacy as
may be in the diplomatic situation in Asia
than any utterance that he had made could
have emphasized it. To the public the incident
suggested — whether with warrant or without
warrant — uncoordinated Cabinet action and
possible indecision about our future policy in
Asia. It is unfortunate if the necessities of
diplomatic secrecy require such complete
silence under such circumstances. Mr.
Crane's appointment seemed a singularly fit
one. His humiliation would have been less
if the Government had been more frank and
less rude in dealing with him; and the State
Department, too, and its policy and methods
would have been better understood.
PROPPING THE OPEN DOOR
A MORE probable explanation of the abrupt
treatment of Mr. Crane by the State
Department may be indecision about the
course to pursue in Asiatic diplomacy.
These are some of the main facts. When the
Japanese-Russian war was in progress, our
Government insisted on the integrity of China
because if one predatory European nation
enlarged its "influence" or territory there,
others would; and the status that was agreed to
at the time of the Boxer troubles would be
disturbed. In a word, China would be
plundered and divided. This is the first
important fact Following from that is our
contention for the open door to trade, so that
we may have the same chance that other
nations have.
On the other side are these facts. Japan
won Korea, and has absorbed it, and is making
it Japanese. It is the natural and necessary
field for the overflow of Japanese enterprise
and population. The difficulty and even the
danger of the process is shown by the assassi-
nation of Prince Ito by a Korean. That is
regarded by the more spirited part of Korean
opinion as a patriotic deed. It was a political
murder of the sort that the European world is
very familiar with.
If Korea is necessary for Japan's expansion
so also — less immediately but none the less
surely — is Manchuria. Sooner or later Japan
will have Manchuria by the forces of expan-
sion— unless it be forcibly hindered. But, if
Japan acquire virtual control in Manchuria,
the integrity of China is gone and Asiatic
chaos may begin.
Thus our Government has stood and stands
for China's integrity. Yet Japan is drifting
or developing (call it by what name you will)
toward the control of Chinese Manchuria; and
we are at peace and will remain at peace with
Japan. Under all these conditions it is obvi-
ous that we have somewhat delicate diplomatic
tasks in Asia.
Mr. Crane understood our "integrity" policy
and sympathized with it — too openly ? There
must be a delicate balancing of forces and in-
fluences in our dealings with these two Asiatic
peoples. And it may be that precisely what we
wish to do is not as clear as sunlight
It is this difficult situation that gives peculiar
importance to our diplomatic relations with
China and Japan. We insisted on the open
door. All the principal Powers are pledged
to it. But it was our doctrine to begin with.
On the other hand, Japan is the one pro-
gressive, civilizing, developing Asiatic Power.
The Manchurian opportunity was won by
war. Its development by them follows nat-
urally.
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AFTER MR. HARRIMAN
12311
The problem is — and it is a world-wide
problem in which we are especially interested
— that the Powers shall not unduly hamper the
Japanese nor irritate them, but shall see that
Japan does not violate the integrity of China
nor close the door to trade by other nations
— this, or abandon the effort to preserve
Chinese integrity.
THE KHREBUED SUPREME COURT
THE death of Justice Peckham and the
long illness of Justice Moody have
called attention afresh to the enfeebled condi-
tion of the Supreme Court. An unusual
number of its members are past the age of
permitted retirement. It has almost always
been true that some of the Justices have been
more or less weakened by age; and it is and
ought to be a body of venerable men. But
it has not often happened, if it ever before
happened, that the Court was capable of such
little work as it is now able to do. That the
Justices should serve as long as they please is,
perhaps, the best principle; but this principle
is open to the practical objection that the condi-
tion of the Court now presents. The most
venerable members of the Court are incapable
of sustained labor; the calendar is crowded;
important causes press; and the public welfare
inevitably suffers.
It is probable that, by retirements and
deaths, President Taft will have an unusual
number of appointments to make — enough,
perhaps, to change fundamentally the personnel
and the working capacity of the Court; and
this is a Presidential duty for which Mr. Taft
seems especially fitted by his own experience
and temperament and by his primary studies
and interests.
DM. COOK'S DIFFICULT POSITION
COMMANDER PEARY and members of
his party examined the two Esquimaux
youth who, Dr. Cook says, went with him to
the North Pole; and they each traced a map
of the journey that they said Dr. Cook took,
and declared that his "farthest north" was
hundreds of miles from the Pole. This tes-
timony is not conclusive, but it is serious.
Mr. George Kennan has made a calculation
to show that the food supply which Dr. Cook
says that he took on his last "dash" could not
have kept the men and dogs alive during the
time that Dr. Cook reports that the journey
required. Commander Peary and his men,
too, have said that Dr. Cook could not possibly
have made such a journey with the sled that he
used. This testimony is not conclusive, but it
is serious.
The two guides who went with Dr. Cook
when he climbed Mt. McKinley say that he
did not reach the summit; and the townsmen
and neighbors of these men in Montana have
expressed confidence in them. This testi-
mony is not conclusive, but it is serious.
While doubt of Dr. Cook's statements was
thus receiving fortification, he was lecturing
to large audiences and postponing sending his
data either to the faculty at Copenhagen or to
any group of scientific men in our own country.
His apparent indifference to the ever-growing
adverse opinion strengthens this adverse opin-
ion. While it is impossible to prove that he
(as it would be impossible to prove that any
other Arctic traveler) did not go to the North
Pole, the situation into which he has allowed
himself to drift is such that he must now very
conclusively demonstrate that he did go. Else
the doubt will become stronger and settle into
a definite conviction against him.
AFTER MS. HARRIMAH
THE place occupied by Mr. Harriman in
the old Harriman system of railroads
has been filled by the apointment of Judge
Lovett to be chairman, and by three new vice-
presidents. Nominally the dead magnate's
position is filled; really it is vacant. In most
of the other railroads in which the hand of
the Harriman dynasty was powerful, men have
been chosen who are in line with the policies
that Mr. Harriman worked out. There are
two striking exceptions. On the New York
Central board his place is filled by Mr. Marvin
Hughitt, a Vanderbilt-Morgan man. On
the Gould lines, the young sons of Mr. George
Gould have succeeded Mr. Harriman.
The Harriman estate is to be managed, it
is reported, by Mrs. Harriman, who has taken
an office on Fifth Avenue, New York. At
her command, of course, are the wisdom of
the bankers and the skill of the lawyers who
well served her husband in his day.
But these are details. In fact, the compact
influence of the Harriman dynasty is already
dissipated. The hegemony of the Union
Pacific died with its creator. There is not
to-day, nor will there be to-morrow, another
railroad autocrat Every one of the half-dozen
men who might measure up to the Harriman
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
standard fears to try it; for the life of Mr.
Harriman was cut short by overwork. He
conquered his world. How completely he
ruled it only those knew who, for the past
three years, controlled and operated railroads
that were nominally or really independent, but
were bound, nevertheless, to the wheel of
things, and that wheel had cogs that touched
the Union Pacific. Every man in this circle
knows that this vast machine killed Mr.
Harriman.
Now the hands of the Gould family tighten
about the many railroads that they had almost
lost, and that were saved to them by the
intervention of Mr. Harriman. The Vander-
bilt family is again dominant in the New York
Central. The daring of Mr Hawley, so
long held in check by the fear of a great shadow,
drives him on in a campaign of railroad
conquest The Northern lines are breaking
into Oregon. It is rumored that the North-
western is moving on San Francisco, the very
heart of the Harriman power.
For five minutes, on the day of Mr. Harri-
man's funeral, the wheels stood still on the
Harriman roads. Then they moved again.
An hour later, most of the trains were running
on schedule. A similar thing is happening
with the whole system.
HnrTS OF GOOD INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP
MR. YOAKUM, of the Rock Island Rail-
road system, so often talks sound
economic sense in the language of the people
that it is pardonable to quote often from his
speeches to Texan farmers. In a recent
address at the State Fair at Dallas, he offered
to set an agent of his railroads at work in every
state through which they run to make definite
plans whereby the railroad and the farmers
may work together at practical and mutually
helpful tasks, provided the farmers' organiza-
tions would actively cooperate with him. And
he presented an interesting calculation to show
that if by working together they could save
or add a cent a pound to the price that the
Texan farmers receive for their cotton, this
added cent would bring fifteen million more
dollars a year as the farmers' profit.
Mr. Yoakum's talent for industrial leader-
ship was indicated also by such a definite
suggestion as this:
"In the Ozark regions of Arkansas, adapted to
both agriculture and horticulture, for three miles
on either side of the railroad the land in cultiva-
tion is very profitable. The products of equally
as good land farther away from the railroad are
often lost to the producer during wet weather, on
account of poor roads. In this three-mile zone
there are 38,000 acres under intensified cultivation,
producing $1,000,000 profit to the farmers. Good
public roads extending out for ten miles would
bring into cultivation an additional 125,000 acres,
producing $3,500,000 profit per annum, at the
same time trebling the value of the land."
THE UNITED STATES BAHK AGAIH
THE financial and economic advantages
of a Central Bank, analagous (with
modifications) to the Bank of England and
the Bank of France, are plainly set forth in
this number of The World's Work by Mr.
Robert L. McCabe. His reasons, from a
financial point-of-view, are sound; and he
presents them compactly and clearly.
But they are not accepted by a large part
of the country, nor even by all students of
financial subjects. The gravest objection set
against these reasons in favor of such a bank
is the objection to such a concentration of
financial power as it might cause. This is
the historic objection which goes back to
Jackson's time.
The theory of the Central Bank is correct;
and its practice, in Great Britain, in Germany,
and in France, is excellent. If the people were
sure of a parallel institution, free from the
misuse of financial power, of manipulated
finance, and of stock-jobbing by banking
magnates and institutions, they would approve
it. The governors of the great central banks
of Europe make their rates of discount with
their eyes upon the commerce of the country
and the world. Stock speculation is at most
incidental in their counsels. Could we manage
such an institution in a similar way? Or
have our banking morals been vitiated by the
morals of great banks whose managers listen
to the stock ticker? Could a board of govern-
ors be chosen for a Central Bank that would
turn its back upon the prayers of the most
powerful banks in the country which might
wield the power of panic and disaster if their
behests be refused? This fear may or may
not be justified. But it is widespread and
deep.
The Bank of France, generally conceded
to be the most powerful and best organized
of central banks, is ruled by fifteen regents
and three inspectors. Five regents must
be elected from the business shareholders.
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A GOOD RESULT OF THE CORPORATION TAX
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Three more must be chosen from the dis-
bursing agents. But at the annual meeting
only die two hundred largest stockholders
have the right to vote. At present no one has
a vote unless he owns stock worth more than
$100,000. Apply that rule to an American
central bank and it might become a Wall
Street bank forthwith — under our present
financial leadership and methods.
Nor is the movement for such a bank in our
country made more popular by its champions.
Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island, chairman
of the Senate Committee on Finance, is its
chief political spokesman; and the most ener-
getic advocates of it in private financial life
are in Wall Street. These facts do not touch
the soundness of the theory. But they do
affect its popularity. It may or may not be
true that the plan will have to wait till it comes
more directly from the people and with their
endorsement The line of debate will presently
be sharply drawn in Congress.
COMFORT IN OLD AGS BY GOVERHMENT HELP
YOUR attention is directed to the Govern-
ment Annuities Act (1908), under which
provision may be made by or for every man,
woman, or child domiciled in Canada, against
want and poverty and for that happiness which
comes with the removal of the haunting fear of
destitution in old age."
This is the preamble to a little pamphlet
issued by the Minister in charge of Canadian
Government Annuities, Sir Richard Cart-
wright The scheme is based on the most
human of foundations, the fear of poverty. It
is undertaken by the Canadian Government,
which cooperates with the existing machinery
of savings, such as the postal savings-banks.
It takes the place of industrial insurance in the
Massachusetts savings banks, and of old-
age pensions in some European countries.
The Government advises men to look over
their incomes, to figure out what they can save
as an insurance against old age, and imme-
diately tp open an account with the Govern-
ment Money may be deposited in the nearest
post-office, savings-bank or money-order office,
or it may be remitted direct to Ottawa. It is
compounded at 4 per cent.; and when the time
comes that is chosen for the beginning of an
annuity, the size of the payments by the
Government will be calculated upon the total
volume of the savings.
The payments may be in lump sums, or in
driblets as small as twenty-five cents a week.
The annuity provided may not be less than
$50 a year nor more than $600. The fund is
inalienable, and cannot be seized for debt
or forfeited in any way. If a man cease
payments, what he has paid in will be put to
his credit to buy an annuity to the amount that
his total permits, or, if not enough to provide
$50 a year, they will be returned with interest
at 3 per cent In case of death, the fund is
an aid to his heirs. There are no lapses,
penalties, or dues of any sort other than the
deposits.
The plan seems simplicity itself. It is the
savings-bank, the insurance company, the
building-and-loan society, and the Government
bond rolled into one, in a shape adapted to
the smallest of depositors.
The pamphlet of explanation shows that
the Canadian Government is taking warning
from the experience of the Mother Country:
"Much of the extreme poverty and destitution
in Great Britain, which has been shown by the
recent Pension Act to exist, would have been
impossible had there been a general adoption of
a scheme like the Canadian scheme in England
half a century ago. The men and women who
are now on the 'pauperizing pension roll9 could
have preserved their self-respect and independence,
and the enormous annual drain on the public
treasury, which amounts to nearly $50,000,000,
would probably have been avoided. If Canada
is not ultimately to face the same conditions as
exist in England and many other European
countries, the people of small income must make
definite provision for their old age. Let every
man, woman and child, therefore, remember that
a payment of a few cents a week will provide with
absolute certainty for an eventide of comfort and
happiness. Experience proves, however, that
they will not lay aside that 'something' for the
' rainy day ' unless an obligation to do so is created."
▲ GOOD RESULT OF THE CORPORATION TAX
THE legal advisers of the National Asso-
ciation of Agricultural Implements and
Vehicles at a recent meeting in Chicago advised
these manufacturers to consider the advisa-
bility of surrendering their corporate charters
and making co-partnerships instead. This
suggestion was made because of the Federal
tax on corporations' income particularly, and
of the ever-increasing state and national super-
vision in general. Other manufacturing com*
panies are considering similar action.
There are many concerns that ought never
to have become corporations but ought to
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
hdve remained partnerships. The corporate
form was in many cases taken only to escape
the "personal liability for debts that inheres
in partnerships; and, in cases wherein this is
the only^reasra, or the compelling reason, it
wbtild make for more careful management
and for better business morals if partnerships
still existed. The corporation tax may in this
unexpected way exert an excellent influence.
:lNiW ARGUMENT FOE PKKMAHENT PEACE
THE invention of a new rapid-firing gun —
not a piece of artillery but a weapon for
infantry and cavalry — has increased the
kflling powfcr of & soldier from twenty to one
hundred times, according to circumstances.
It may, therefore, be regarded as the most
notable peace-making event of* the year,
because it multiplies the destructiveness of
warfare:
Though it has become a part of the equip-
ment of the United States army and will be
nianufactured in the Government's arsenal
at Springfield, Mass., no nation will have a
monopoly of the invention; and, therefore, no
over-confident army will be tempted into
arrogance because. of its possession.
The new invention, known as. the Benet-
Mercie gun, will probably displace the Maxim,
which has hitherto been thought to have
reached the possibilities of rapid-firing. But
the Maxim (with its tripod) weighs one hundred
andsixty pounds, and five mules are usually
required to carry each gun and its equipment.
It is therefore considered as artillery, for it
cannot be kept in the van of an infantry
charge, nor can it keep pace with cavalry.
The Benet-Mercie weighs only twenty-two
pounds, and in the Government tests an
infantryman, carried the gun and three hundred
rounds of ammunition for five miles. In
skirmishing, its efficiency was shown to be
about equivalent to that of twenty men armed
with rifles. Under more favorable conditions,
it'is said to have as great efficiency as an
infantry company of from seventy-five to one
Hundred men.
Ih cavalry use, its advantages are eVen
greater. It is so constructed that its stock,
weighing ten pounds, can be hung on one
side of the saddle; while the barrel, weighing
twelve pounds; can be hung on the other side.
The two parts can be "adjusted for action in
about twenty seconds, and their weight is not
sufficient to retard the movements of cavalry.
During tKe government tests it was found
that one mule could easily carry two guns, two
extra barrels, and twelve hundred * rounds of
ammunition.
The Maxim is also at another disadvantage:
its barrel is cooled by means of a water jacket
So great is the heat generated by rapid firing
that the jacket is necessarily refilled after the
first 750 shots, and therefore twelve pints of
water are used for each 1,000 shots. This
means not only the necessity of carrying a
heavy weight of water, but also the generation
of a cloud of steam which reveAls to the enemy
the location of the machine-gun. "
The Benet-Mercie gun is air-cooled. The
outside of the baniel. is grooved to expose a
greater surface to the air, and atr the lower part
of the barrel is a series of radiation coils,
similar to those used in the iir-cooling device
of an automobile engine. This radiation is
sufficient to keep the barrel cool if not more
than one hundred shots are fired per minute;
and it is claimed that the barrel will not become
overheated at two hundred shots per minute
until about five minutes have passed. In case
overheating should take place, an extra barrel
(which is carried as part of the equipment) may
be adjusted. This change took forty seconds
during one army trial, but it is claimed that
the time can be materially reduced. The air-
cooling mechanism does away with the neces-
sity of carrying water. "
The new automatic gun is fired from the
ground, having supports barely long enough
to hold it at a convenient height. The gunner
takes a reclining position. This method of
firing is adequate for distances up to approxi-
mately a mile, and it is within this radius that
the gun will probably find its chief efficiency.
It will shoot about two miles, but for the
greater distances the army may find it desirable
to provide a light tripod. Captain J. H.
Parker, who commands a provisional nflthine-
gun company in the United States army, gives
it as his opinion that the Benet-Mercie has
the most perfect mechanism of all rapid-firing
guns yet invented. The Government tests
show that it will produce a hail of four hundred
or five hundred shots per minute. This is even
more than a gunner can usually employ with
good effect. The gun continues firing as long
as pressure upon the trigger is continued, and
stops at once when the trigger is released. Its
period of continuous action is, in the judgment
of army officers, limited to less than five
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PEACE FOR BUSINESS REASONS
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minutes. Within that period any human tar-
get will either have been disposed of. or will
have retired.
Its automatic action is secured by the use
of gases generated in firing. At each shot, gas
is forced from the barrel into a small chamber
just beneath, and the pressure of the gas fires
the fresh cartridges. Because of the utiliza-
tion of this energy, which is usually expended
in the recoil, the "kick" of the new automatic
is materially less than that of the army rifle.
The cartridges are of thirty calibre, and are
identical with those used in modern rifles.
For feeding into the gun they are adjusted in
brass clips, each of which holds thirty cart-
ridges. Ten of these loaded clips are carried
in each ammunition case, and in infantry
service the gunner will carry one case in addi-
tion to the gun. His assistant will carry two
cases, or four in emergencies. When the gun
is in action the assistant supplies fresh clips.
To adjust a new supply of ammunition after
thirty shots have been fired requires two or
three seconds. The Maxim ammunition is
fed by a belt holding 250 rounds, but govern-
ment tests show that the Maxim gives more
trouble through jamming, which is quite largely
due to the belt feed.
An effort is now being made to adapt the
Maxim silencer to the new automatic. Experi-
ments thus far conducted have resulted in
quickly overheating the barrel, but the effort
has not been abandoned.
This new instrument of death was invented
by Laurence V. Benet, managing director of
, the Hotchkiss plant in Paris. He is the son
of a former chief of ordnance of the United
States army, and a brother of Colonel Benet
of the United States army. M. Mercie, whose
name the gun also bears, is superintendent of
the Hotchkiss plant in Paris.
r ^DREADNOUGHTS HAVE ALREADY
» BROUGHT WAR
IN THE batdeships Delaware and North
Dakota, which made their trial trips in
October, we added to our Navy the two most
powerful vessels of war afloat in the seas of
the world. But they will not long retain
their pre-eminence. In the same month two
magnified Dreadnoughts, the English Neptune
and the German Ostjriesland — respectively
the biggest, and the most powerful warship
under contract — were put into the water.
In the same month still, England launched a
19,000-ton cruiser-battleship, and France an
18,000-ton battleship with a greater weight
of gun-fire than the Dreadnought. Two new
super- Dreadnoughts, the Westfalen and the
Nassau, are ready to join the German fleet of
six already floating monsters of this type,
equalling in number and outmatching in power
the English eight. Another German super-
Dreadnought, the Siegfried, is in the water;
still another, the Beawd), will be there before
the next issue of this magazine. Four sister?
will join them next year. Particulars of the
armors and armaments of these new German
naval fortresses being preserved as state secrets
of the most vital moment, no one knows
whether they will surpass in power the improved
Dreadnoughts now being secretly completed
in English yards.
What we are witnessing is a new form of war-
fare— the strangest ever seen. Whether or
not these ships ever fire a shot at one another,
every one of them has already attacked and
damaged the nation whose rivalry provoked its
building. They have spilt no blood, but they
have exacted tremendous indemnities; they
have destroyed wealth, and despoiled the tax-
payers of the enemy.
Many a battle has cost the loser econom-
ically less than the loss it incurs in having to
build a battleship. Twenty such battles could
have been fought during the latter half of the
year 1909 with no greater cost than that of the
twenty monstrous ships begun within that
period. And this strange and cruel contest
has been waged in mere apprehension of a
future cause! Furthermore, it has left the par-
ticipants precisely where they were before, in
the same relative positions of strength, although
all the nations involved are really weaker than
they were at the start. This surely is a very
strange chapter in modern history.
PEACE FOR BUSINESS REASONS
SUCH an estimate of warship building —
and it is a true estimate — takes no
account of the more dreadful costs of war —
of widow's tears, of empty chairs, and cold
hearthstones. Nor does international politics
take account of these. . Wars are waged in
modern times for economic gain. Whatever
specious arguments may be given for them,
their true cause is generally an economic one.
Seldom indeed has honor or humanity success-
fully prompted an armed conflict in which
there was no prospect of gain.
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
It may well be, then, that the advocates of
permanent peace may find their chief ground
for hope in the fact that the cost of war is
growing greater than any prospects of gain
from war. It is not the remembrance of
widow's tears nor reflection on the wickedness
of slaying fellow-men that will disarm the
nations. International combats will cease
only when they are perceived to be econom-
ically inadvisable.
Mr. Edward Ginn, of Boston, was moved
by recognition of this truth when he devoted
a million dollars to promote the cause of
universal peace by uniting the business men
of the world against armed conflicts. He
wishes to interest Chambers of Commerce
and like business organizations in the financial
burden of war, confident that attention to it
will beget the conviction that war "doesn't pay."
A NEW EMANCIPATION TOM THE SOUTH
ABOUT the value of many well-meant
efforts in philanthropy there is room
for doubt — the more room, the more com-
plex the world becomes. But there can be
no doubt about the value of the gift by Mr.
John D. Rockefeller of a sum — up to a mil-
lion dollars, if necessary — to carry on a
campaign of cooperation with the Southern
people to eradicate the hookworm. This is a
definite and practicable undertaking that will
be of incalculable benefit to our country. It
will rid it of a scourge worse than any war.
There are — by a conservative estimate
made by the highest medical authority — two
million victims of this disease, and the num-
ber is increasing so fast that in some communi-
ties all the people will soon become infected
if it be not checked. The number of deaths,
especially of children, that are directly or
indirectly caused by it are unknown and incal-
culable; for the disease is not understood in
many rural regions and it prepares the way for
typhoid fever, malaria, tuberculosis, and pneu-
monia, and greatly increases both their preva-
lence and the mortality caused by them.
The hookworm, which was first explained
to the lay public in the May number of The
World's Work, was discovered in the United
States by Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles. His
unceasing and unselfish labor in behalf of
its victims had made it known to the best-
informed physicians; but the public had little
or no knowledge of it till last year, when Pres-
ident Roosevelt's Country Life Commission
began its work. Dr. Stiles went with the
Commissioners; and his explanation of the
disease in the Southern States began to arouse
the people to an understanding of it
The present widespread agitation for eradi-
cating it was then begun; many agencies and
communities in the infested region are waking
up to proper action. It must at last be
stamped out by local sanitary regulations.
But before local laws can be made and
enforced in the wide areas of rural life, there
will be millions of new victims; and there is
an imperative need of such a campaign as Mr.
Rockefeller has made possible, to cooperate
with all local forces till the land is cleared of
the scourge and all the people brought to under-
stand it and the methods of its prevention.
If every human being in these states used a
sanitary privy, there would be no new case of
the disease; and most of the two million or
more present victims could be cured by half-
a-dollar's worth of epsom salts and thymol.
Yet it is this disease that has long held back,
and now holds back, millions of native Ameri-
cans of English stock from a normal develop-
ment. It has made them inert, unsuccessful,
unambitious, inefficient The South has a
grave labor problem because so many of its
people have been too sick to work effectively
or skilfully. The South has a grave educa-
tional problem because so many of its people
have been too sick to care for education or to
pay for it or to profit by it. The South has a
problem of delayed moral vigor because so
many of its people have been too sick to
develop strength of character.
This disease has thus caused these millions
to be underfed, undertrained, undeveloped
in every way. It has caused them to be mis-
understood. It has caused them to misunder-
stand the rest of the world. The hookworm
can be traced these last fifty years in its
deadening effect on industry, on politics, on
character.
Nor is it only a poor man's disease. In
several Southern colleges the students have
within a few months been examined, and
about one-third of them were found to be its
victims. This one-third were behind their
fellows in sport, in college work, and the very
fibre of life.
The extermination of this disease will bring
more good results than any single event in the
history of the Southern States, except only the
abolition of slavery; and it may almost even
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THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND
12317
dispute supremacy in importance with that
This is the proper measure of the value of
Dr. Stiles's work.
It was an impressive spectacle — this group
of men seated at a directors' table, including
the very highest medical authorities on this
subject in the world: Dr. Stiles; Dr. Welch,
of the Johns Hopkins University and President
of the American Medical Association; and
Dr. Flexner, of the Rockefeller Institute for
Medical Research, and half-a-dozen of the
educational leaders of the South, including
Mr. Joyner, State Superintendent of Public
Schools in North Carolina, and President of the
National Educational Association — met to
accept this fund and to lay plans to use it
effectively. They will give to the work their
time and their authority and influence and
their best judgment without other compensa-
tion than the highest compensation that men
can receive for any labor — the satisfaction of
serving their fellow-men.
II
You may calculate the gain that will be
made by the eradication of this disease in any
one of several ways. Economically it will be
the difference between two million persons sick
and inefficient — a drag on all progress —
and the same persons well and efficient — a
help to industry; two million whom the com-
munity has to carry and the same two million
doing their normal work. There will be a
corresponding gain in energy of thought and
of character.
Nor is this all. With the eradication of the
hookworm the prevalence of tuberculosis, of
typhoid, and of other diseases will be very
greatly diminished. This campaign, there-
fore, is a campaign directly against all these
diseases also, and for right living, so as to
lessen all diseases. Alabama, for instance,
has now the highest typhoid death-rate of all
the states. Such a new sanitary order of life
as will be required to banish the hookworm
will greatly diminish this scourge also.
Nor is this all. In most rural parts of the
United States good sanitation is yet unknown
in the habits of a large part of the people.
When the schools, the local government author-
ities, the churches, and all forces for the build-
ing up of the people have been organized in
the South for a general sanitary campaign, the
value of such work will be brought home to
the people in other parts of the Union. For
there are other diseases than hookworm disease
that can be prevented by such organization.
Out of this movement may come a new kind
of activity for health.
THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND
THE myth of the stolid Englishman, con-
ceived as a being proof against the
assaults of emotion, was wrecked last winter
in the frenzy of the "invasion" panic We
are prepared, therefore, for the display of
intense feeling, of passion unexampled in the
politics of England since Corn-Law days, that
accompanies the discussion of the budget
of the Asquith Government This time die
emotion is not merely nervous. It is very real
and profound. "This is not a budget, but a
revolution," and it may be true that what
England needs is not a budget but a revolution.
With one million officially listed paupers,
with capital going abroad and opportunities of
employment dwindling at home, with physicians
pointing to the evidence of physical deteriora-
tion, with the accepted necessity of hastily
doubling the burden of national defense, with
the necessity of finding means to meet in some
way the triumphant rivalry of Germany and
of a whole foreign world, sweeping on to a new
era of industry and commerce — confronted
with all this, the remarkable group of men
who find themselves at the head of the British
Government have dared to plan a social
revolution. They propose to obliterate the
picturesque remains of feudalism, to return
the land to the people, to assert the public
ownership of natural resources, and to enforce
the right of every man to work. The budget
means all this — ultimately.
The particular aim for the moment is, of
course, the necessity of raising more revenue.
The Government proposes to make the rich
pay it; they are to be taxed and sur-taxed,
and taxed again; especially must the landlords
empty their pockets, and the heirs of the dying
yield up big slices of their newly acquired
property. "This," cry the landlords, "is con-
fiscation. It is unrighteous; it is monstrous.
Moreover, it will prove a measure not of ame-
lioration but of disaster, for, destroying confi-
dence in the safety of property and removing
incentives to enterprise, it will paralyze industry
and increase poverty."
"How then," rejoins the Government, "will
you get your revenue?"
The answer is ready. Mr. Chamberlain
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
furnished it in his audacious proposal of five
years ago and he lives to witness its full accept-
ance by his party. They call it " tariff reform"
in England, and it means "protection." With
the arguments in favor of "protection" as a
promoter of industry, we are familiar. To-day
British workingmen are listening to them.
The walls of London and Manchester are
plastered with cartoons depicting full dinner-
pails and other pictorial arguments of the
Protectionists.
A peculiar obstacle, however, to popular
acceptance of these arguments is the fact that
any scheme of British "protection" must lay
a duty on wheat and increase the price of
bread. Therefore, the Liberals raise the cry:
"Tax the land of the rich man, not the bread
of the poor."
n
Nor could the movement be more effectively
sustained than it is by Mr. David Lloyd-
George. This successor of Disraeli and Glad-
stone in the Chancellory of the Exchequer
would be a Populist if he were an American.
He rails against privilege; he hates accumu-
lated wealth; he boasts that he was a poacher;
he grills landlords and girds at the nobility.
"A duke," he says, "costs as much as a
Dreadnought and is far more dangerous."
However, there has been "a slump in dukes."
Mr. Lloyd-George preaches the doctrine of the
"unearned increment" in homeliest and plain-
est language; crowds hang upon his words as
he promises to spoil the Egyptians and holds
forth alluring prospects of Governmental insur-
ance against unemployment, and old age pen-
sions for alL
Nothing, shouts this Cabinet Minister who
looks like an evangelical preacher and talks
like Ben Tillman, nothing can stop the sweep
of the social reform upon which the British
people have entered, and those who think to
do so will be annihilated by the lightning
which has not yet begun to play.
Ill
Mr. Lloyd-George's threat is, of course,
aimed particularly at the House of Lords,
and it is even predicted in some quarters that
that venerable member of the British political
fabric may fall before the storm. The House
of Lords probably has the constitutional right to
throw out the budget now that it has passed the
Commons, but such an act would probably
invite its own destruction. An English insti-
tution is the last thing on earth to commit
suicide; but, encouraged by the Bermondsey
bi-election result, the Lords may pluck up
courage to refuse approval to the budget, not
on its merits but under the form of a demand
that so important a measure be referred to the
people before enactment.
The King is understood to be anxious to
avoid the possibilities that might follow this
step, and for the first time has betrayed a
concern over internal affairs of a Government
administered in his name.
Whatever the conceivable abolition of the
House of Lords might mean and lead to — and
there are not lacking agitated Englishmen who
affirm that it would threaten the throne itself —
this would be of formal and but slight actual
importance compared with the already certain
fact that the mind of England is set upon
social revolution, and that the new gospel has
found its apostles in a responsible Government
and its upper room in Downing Street.
HOW ANARCHISTS ARE MADE
THE summary manner in which Prof.
Antonio Ferrer was executed in Barce-
lona shows that the Spanish authorities were
so eager for his removal that they did not
stop to consider the measure of the man's
influence.
As a result of the execution, France, Spain,
Italy, and Latin-America were profoundly
agkated, and indignation meetings were held
in England and America as well. The Spanish
Cabinet has been forced out of office by the
violence of public sentiment
It seems incredible that the leaders of Spain
should not have foreseen all this. The execu-
tion of a popular idol, even where guilt is
self-evident — as in the case of John Brown, of
Ossawatomie — is always to be feared. Ferrer
was primarily an educator; he strove for a
public school system that was opposed to the
schools conducted by priests and nuns. Had
he lived in America he would probably have
been a social-settlement worker, with social-
istic tendencies. As it was, he was not an
anarchist of the blatant, violent class, but a
schoolteacher of a gentle and devoted type.
All Europe will reap the consequences
of his hasty taking-off. Thinking men and
women in the countries where the double
oppression of monarchy and church is keenly
felt have been pressed across the boundary-
Digitized by V^OOQIC
AN ODD METHOD OF INVESTMENT
12319
line into Socialism; and many Socialists have
been turned into open anarchists.
The position of monarchy and of the church
in Spain is not to be envied. The violent anar-
chists will probably wreak what they consider an
adequate revenge, soon or late; but the worst
of it is that the opponents of law and organized
government have been strengthened by men
who were supposed to be ministers of justice.
AMERICAN COLLEGES IN ASIA
A MAN who is ambitious for a life of
exceptional usefulness may find a
suggestion in the careers of two American
educators who have returned home after ap-
proximately half a century of epoch-making
service in Western Asia — Dr. George Wash-
burn, of Robert College, Constantinople,
and Dr. Daniel Bliss, of the American Protest-
ant College, Beirut, Syria. Dr. Washburn
has just told his story in his "Fifty Years in
Constantinople," but neither man has ever
made efforts to attract the attention of his
countrymen.
Robert College, to which Dr. Washburn
devoted his life, was founded by Cyrus Hamlin,
but was named after Mr. Robert (without his
consent), a New York merchant who gave
$400,000 for its founding. It occupies a
beautiful site of twenty-three acres overlook-
ing the Bosphorus, is near the bridge over
which Darius led the Persians into Scythia,
and faces a castle built by Mohammed the
Conqueror in the year that Columbus dis-
covered America. At the time of its founding,
1863, there was no other college in the Turkish
Empire.
Its wholesome and enlightened influence has
been stamped upon at least 3,000 young
men of the Levant, chiefly Greeks, Armenians,
and Bulgarians, and its graduates have,
generally, been a credit to the institution.
For instance, it educated the men whose
leadership made it possible for the Bulgarians
to establish a free state in the Balkans.
The American Protestant College, in Beirut,
has* had even a wider influence. It also is
out-and-out American in its spirit and methods;
the late Morris K. Jesup was president of its
board of trustees. It has about nine hundred
students a year in its seven departments and
requires a teaching force of about seventy
instructors. The graduates of this college
occupy positions of influence in many lands.
For example, an editor of this magazine
discovered one at Tangier editing the most
influential Arabic newpaper in Morocco. Lord
Cromer employed many of the Beirut men
during his twenty years' work of rebuilding
Egypt.
Not the least among the results achieved by
Drs. Washburn and Bliss is the stimulus to
Oriental education in general. The con-
spicuous success has encouraged the establish-
ment of hundreds of other schools in the
Levant. There are now at least a dozen
American colleges and more than a hundred
other important mission schools. The example
of Robert College, in particular, led the
Turkish Government into an epoch of college-
building — and this has doubtless had much
to do with "the young Turk" movement that
deposed Sultan Abdul Hamid.
There is more than national pride in the
prophecy that the graduates of American
schools will be the chief factors in the real
upbuilding of that part of the old world which
for the time being is called the Turkish Empire.
AN ODD METHOD OF INVESTMENT
A MAN who died in Connecticut seven
years ago left to his son a legacy of
$5,000. The son, a fairly prosper-
ous clerk in a downtown wholesale house in
New York, was twenty-six, married, and lived
in a rented house in New Jersey. At the time
his mind was bent upon the task of building
up, for the future, a little estate. His first child
had just been born, and the responsibilities
of home weighed somewhat heavily upon his
mind. As a salaried man, he had saved little;
and he figured much upon what would happen
to his hostages to fortune in case anything hap-
pened to him.
All this he told me on the train, apologizing
for the nature of the investment he had made
with that legacy.
"I was afraid of Wall Street," he said, "and
Digitized by VjOOQlC
12320
AN ODD METHOD OF INVESTMENT
not enough experienced to undertake the scien-
tific investment of the money and the interest
it would earn. Of course, I knew that a good
investment would double my money in fif-
teen years or so. Everybody knows that The
trouble was to find a way. I am not much on
system, and I felt that if I had interest coming
in every few months I might not invest it every
time. I would want a horse, or something,
and spend the money to get it. You see, I
was building a home at the same time.
"The thing I did was to go and buy a few
railroad bonds that I found out to be real,
solid bonds; and then I took out life insurance
with premiums payable every six months,
shortly after my interest was due from the
bonds. I made the amount of insurance match
the interest; so I can't use up any of the income
if I want to.
"It may be kind of foolish; but now I have
the habit, and it seems easy to carry the thing
along. I don't get anything out of the money,
but it makes me feel comfortable. Maybe I
might have done better; but I know I might
have done worse."
It struck me that the thing was sensible, and
I said so. The particular thing that I saw in
it was the safeguard against foolishness. It
is too easy to spend money, and the man with
a small income coming in from a legacy that
he did not earn with his own work is more apt,
perhaps, than any other man to spend the
"wind-fall" on luxuries. And luxuries that
are consumed immediately cost double.
It seemed worth while, however, to analyze
the investment, and to put alongside of it
one or two other methods that he might
have used. It is seven years since the invest-
ment was made. Here is what he has
to-day to show for the fund:
FIEST PLAN
Value of the bonds $5>ooo
Surrender value of the policies ... 1,140
Total cash value $6,140
Additional in case of death .... 8,860
Total estate $15,000
The bond is perfectly good. It cost him
about par and is worth that to-day, and it pays
$250 a year in interest. The insurance was
ordinary life, twenty-year insurance, in a good
company. The interest is payable on Octo-
ber 1st and April 1st of each year, and the
insurance premiums are paid on October 5th
and April 5th of each year. For the sake of
illustration, it may be assumed that the semi-
annual interest on his $5,000 bonds exactly
meets the semi-annual premiums on $10,000
insurance, though it does not quite meet them.
If, instead of doing this, he had put the
money in banks, at an average rate of 4 per
cent, the present value of the investment
would be this:
SECOND PLAN
Principal $5,000
Interest compounded semi-annually . . 1,862
Cash value $6,862
Additional value in case of death . . 0,000
Total estate $6,862
This would be the natural thing for a man
to do, if he was afraid of investment. Clearly,
it runs up the cash value of the fund much
faster than the other; but on the other hand
it carries no contingent profits in case of death.
As compared with this form of investment,
the buyer has paid $722 for seven years' in-
surance in the sum of $8,860.
If the young man, instead of buying
insurance, had made his investment in bonds,
and then deposited the interest every six
months and let it compound in the bank,
the result now would be:
THIRD PLAN
Bonds $5,000
Interest 2,036
Cash value $7*036
Additional in case of death .... 0,000
Total estate $7,036
Here is a distinct gain over the savings-
bank account. This simply means that a
man who deposits $125 every six months and
gets 4 per cent, on it will find at the end of
seven years a fund of $2,036 in his bank* This
is the principle upon which the instalment
bonds, used largely in the real-estate deben-
ture field, are based. As compared with this
method, the insurance has cost the buyer $996
for seven years. The rate is getting high.
The same amount of similar insurance, car-
ried in* addition, would have cost him about
$550, after deducting the cash value of the
Digitized by VjOOQlC
AN ODD METHOD OF INVESTMENT
12321
There are many variations of this third plan.
Real-estate debentures on the instalment plan
usually pay 6 per cent.; and he might have
bought them with his $125 every six months.
It would have increased his interest gains
about $200 in the seven years.
Again, he might have let his fund accu-
mulate until it reached a figure large enough
to buy a bond; or he might even have bought
one good solid share of stock each six months.
A slight study of the list of prices during the
period shows that he could now be the owner
of fifteen shares of the better class of railroad
stocks. If he had at each period picked out
the best-known stock at his price — $125 a
share — he would have made these purchases,
and received the indicated amount of divi-
dends on them in the intervening time up to
the present:
Bcug/U in
April, 1903
October, 1903
April, 1904
October, 1904
April, 1905
October, 1905
April, 1906
October, 1906
April, 1907
October, 1907
April, 1908
October, 1908
April, 1909
October, 1909
1 Share of Dividends, Etc.
Canadian Pacific $54.00
Omaha 41.00
Pennsylvania (2) 37-5©
Louisville & Nash-
ville 28.00
Union Pacific . . . 40.50
Soo Line .... 18.00
Reading .... 16.00
New York Central 19.25
Northern Pacific . . 19.25
Milwaukee . . . 14.00
Illinois Central . . 11.50
. Great Northern . . 8.75
Atlantic Coast Line . 3.00
Atchison, Topeka &
S. F 0.00
Par value, $1,500 . $310.75
The dividends would naturally be depos-
ited to earn interest, say at 4 per cent They
would earn, in all, about $45 additional, making
the total income from this source $355-75-
The actual cost of the $1,500 of stock was
$1,825. The present value is $2,154. There
is here a profit of $319, which must be counted
in. The total result of the investment would,
therefore, work out thus:
FOURTH FLAN
Bonds $5,000.00
Cost of stocks 1,825.00
Dividends and interest 355*75
Total $7,i8o-75
Profits if sold 319.00
Total $7,499-75
In seven years, in security investment that is
not in any way scientific, but is almost purely
haphazard, the increase in value is nearly 50
per cent.
It sounds difficult to the man who has never
dealt in securities. As a matter of fact, given
common sense, it is about as easy as anything
could be.
If the buyer buys his bond and leaves
it in the name of his banker and in his
hands, the banker collects the coupons
every April and October. The buyer
calls the banker on the telephone on April
1st, and says:
"You have a credit balance in my name.
Please buy me one share of Canadian
Pacific, hold it in your name, and keep it
for me."
The next day he gets a notice that the stock
is bought, and the price. At the end of the
month, he gets a statement from the banker
showing how much there still is to his credit.
The banker collects the dividends. There is
nothing to do about it. Six months later,
the buyer picks out another stock selling at the
right price. He telephones again. The same
thing happens every six months. If, after
the purchases are made, there is still a small
balance to his credit, he gets interest on that
His little statement of October 1st may show
that he has a balance of $12.40. He knows
that the interest payable on that day makes it
$13740. He can, if he likes, pay that much
for his share of stock, instead of the usual $125.
Anyway, the whole thing is automatic. It is
the relationship of the substantial banker and
his client.
There are very many ways to use $5,000 with
sense and with profit. The way of the young
man from New Jersey is not at all bad. In
fact, if one needs insurance, it is probably
more sensible than any other way. If, how-
ever, one is looking for investment, there are
many forms of investment that pay better and
are as safe as insurance. The one outlined
above is easy enough, and needs no special
knowledge. It is haphazard buying. One
may note that the buying outlined in it ran
through two booms — 1906 and 1909 — and
one fair-sized panic. A scientific buyer would
probably have refrained from buying in the
booms, and let his balance grow with the
banker. That, however, is a refinement of
the art.
The important thing in such investment is
Digitized by V^OOQlC
12322
THE WESTERNER AND HIS TROLLEY-LINE
the habit of regularity. The more nearly It is automatic, because the premiums are
automatic one gets in the proper use of funds, mandatory. A sensible man should not need
the more the funds will grow. That is the to have an insurance company appointed guar-
one strong point about insurance-investment dian of his money. C. M. K.
THE WESTERNER AND HIS TROLLEY-
LINE
IN JULY, a man in Idaho received a letter
from a New York banking house to the
effect that the bankers had decided to
look carefully into the project which he had
outlined to them. The letter invited the Wes-
terner to come East, bringing with him all the
plans and details and data concerning the
inter-urban railroad which he wanted to build,
and for which he wanted assistance.
The Westerner joyfully packed up his
clothes for a week's stay in New York. He
brought with him all the facts. A statement
showed exactly how many people had lived
along the projected line in every year for
the past decade. Another paper outlined the
acreage that had come under cultivation year
by year. Still another described the irrigation
projects now under way, and recited the prob-
able increase in business and people as a result.
Reports, more or less expert, detailed the
cost of construction, the expense of operation
and maintenance, the source of power, the
market for light and power in the small com-
mercial centres of the region. These state-
ments were a matter of some pride to the
Westerner; for he had in his mind an honest
project, and one that he knew would pay and
would also help his country very greatly.
They met him at the New York banking
house with honest courtesy. He was not sur-
prised nor piqued when he discovered that it
was the junior partner of the banking house
with whom he had his conferences, for he
knew that he was dealing with a firm that
underwrites bond issues of $5,000,000 and
more at a time, and he had no such project
in his mind. The junior member, moreover,
had been in the West, and knew the territory.
He displayed a remarkable knowledge of con-
ditions and a quick sympathy with the ambi-
tions and the patriotism of his visitor.
At the outset, the banker expressed doubt
about the wisdom of his house going into a
project so small. Then he spent two weeks
going over every detail. Finally, he put the
visitor up at a club and told him that the whole
matter would be taken under advisement imme-
diately and that all he could do was to wait
He waited a week, and then went down in
response to a telephone call. He found the
banker kind but quite hopeless.
"We have decided," he said, "that we can-
not handle the bonds. We think your project
is all right, and well conceived. The road
will undoubtedly be a success. If it were
a hundred miles instead of ten, and if it
needed $1,000,000 bonds instead of $100,000,
we could take it, and would be glad to do it
But as it is, my partners don't want to take
it, because it is too small."
"But surely the size of it does not make
any difference in the value of the bonds!"
exclaimed the Westerner, aghast
The banker smiled. " Of course it does,"
he said, "for the size of the issue measures
the volume of our profits. There are many
expenses in underwriting that are just the
same for the small company as for the large.
A legal opinion on the bonds, for instance,
would cost us about as much for your issue of
$100,000 as for an issue of $1,000,000. A
report on your water-power and an engineer's
expenses and fees would be about the same
— within limits.
"You can see how it is if you figure on the
gross profits we could make. Put our com-
mission on the bonds at 7 per cent It would
be $7,000 on your issue, and $70,000 in an
issue of ten times the amount. It would cost
us just about as much in clerical labor, in
selling effort, in engineering reports, in legal
expense, and in supervision to earn that
$7,000 as to earn $70,000 in a larger project.
"We don't discriminate against the small
issue because it is small, but because the mar-
gin of profit in it is very small."
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THE WESTERNER AND HIS TROLLEY-LINE
12323
The Westerner seemed resentful. The banker
was sorry. Because he was sorry, he took
pains to put the Westerner in touch with half
a dozen other houses of various grades. None
of them cared to take up the matter. Most of
them accepted without question the results
of the first investigation, so that little time
was lost; but by the middle of September the
Westerner knew that none of the bigger
banking houses of the East cared for his
project. The reason was identical in every
case.
His associates in the West, local men of more
or less capital, had depended a great deal on
the success of the Eastern visit. Their dele-
gate, therefore, determined to leave no stone
unturned to take back with him something
definite.
He interviewed the two big electric supply
companies, and learned that the heaviest part
of the work could be carried along and paid
for on protracted payments. It might even be
arranged to pay for the work in securities,
though the amount of the construction bonds
that would be needed to pay a debt of $1,000
rather staggered him — and then there was also
some of the stock required.
The last card was the smaller class of bank-
ing houses. At least, so it seemed to the
Westerner. He visited half a dozen whose
names he got from a sympathetic newspaper
man whom he met at his hotel. Here his recep-
tion was pleasant, and his story commanded
a good hearing in every case. Two definite
offers of underwriting resulted. Both of them,
however, went far and away beyond the 7 per
cent, profit of which his first Eastern friend
had spoken. The best of them offered to take
the whole $100,000 of bonds at $85,000, pay-
able over a period of eighteen months, pro-
vided the bonds had a bonus of $50,000 stock
thrown in; and provided, further, that two
directors should be elected by the bankers, one
pf whom would be chosen vice-president of the
company.
The terms seemed rigorous, but the banker
made it clear that in underwriting such ven-
tures the banker takes a large risk, and
must place himself close to the management
so that he may know just what is going
on. It was a perfectly fair proposition, " take
it or leave it."
The Westerner went home, firmly im-
pressed with the idea that the East is a hard
bargainer* He had found one class of
bankers talking easy terms, but not able to
make them; and another class willing to
make hard terms, or what seemed to him
like hard terms. The big electrical com-
panies, he found, are engaged in the elec-
trical manufacturing business just now, and
are not so willing as they used to be to
take bonds or stocks in payment for work.
A week after he reached the West, he re-
ceived a letter addressed to him by an engin-
eering firm in New York. The letter merely
asked whether or not, in view of his desire to
carry on the construction of an electric line,
of which the writer had heard by chance, he
was willing to allow a representative of the
firm in question to call upon him and go over
the details of the project. He knew the en-
gineering firm as a strong, energetic, and
extremely wealthy corporation. He also knew
that if it took up the project it would carry
it through, and continue to dominate it in the
future.
He and his friends are still figuring. They
have about decided to try to get the New
York engineers to take the project and work
it out. They themselves are willing to admit
that as promoters they are not particularly
successful. They want the railroad, and
they think that some one will build it if it is
investigated.
Their project is typical of a large group of
projects that comes to light every year, then
disappears. It belongs in the category of things
too large to be handled by local capital alone,
and too small to be interesting to the big capi-
talist.
Probably nine out of ten of such projects,
particularly in the electric transportation field,
are still-born. Of the other tenth, a few find
backing in the big banking field, in Philadel-
phia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and, occa-
sionally, in New York. Of the rest, a few are
built on popular subscription in the towns along
the route. The rest are financed and built by
home money.
The money of the men at home is the main-
stay of such enterprises, and the.methods used
to enlist this sort of capital, and the ways and
means that ought to be used to safeguard it
when it is raised, form the subject for another
article. Perhaps there are more disappoint-
ments due to lack of knowledge concerning
the banking conditions than from any other
cause, and, therefore, this phase has been dealt
with first.
Digitized by VjOOvLC
HOW TO TELL A GOOD ACCIDENT
POLICY FROM A BAD ONE
ON THE day that George Robertson made
up his mind to purchase the long-
desired home of his own, he took counsel with
his lawyer and paid him a fee running into
three figures to search the title to the property.
He did not propose to take any chances of a
flaw in the title turning up after he had paid
the purchase price and got comfortably settled.
He could have saved the lawyer's fee and
secured a guaranteed title to the property by
having a title guarantee company make the
search., but its charge for services would also
have included a premium for insuring the title.
Then, no matter what defects might have
developed in after years, the money invested
by Robertson would have been safe, for thecom-
pany would either take steps to defend the
title or pay Robertson the original purchase
price. That plan was one with which Robert-
son was not familiar, but, as we have seen, he
was cautious enough to investigate his title.
About the same time Robertson had yielded
to the persuasions of a solicitor for an acci-
dent and illness insurance company and agreed
to take a policy promising him indemnity for
disability caused by accidents or illness. The
transaction was a comparatively simple one.
Just a few questions asked, his name signed,
a courteous adieu, and nothing more was
thought of the matter until a few days later
when the agent appeared with the policy.
"There it is, sir, the best policy of its kind
on the market, covering you for a period of
twelve months from to-day against loss of
time caused by accidental injury or illness,
and promising large sums for dismemberment
of limbs or accidental death."
Robertson took the policy, glanced wisely
at the outside where his name and the date
were conspicuously displayed, asked how
much the premium was, drew his check for the
amount, and then put the policy away in his
safe without a further thought as to its contents.
But the contents were important. All health
and sickness policies are not the same, and an
insurer should know the difference between a
good one and a poor one.
Many persons carry what they' believe to be
general accident insurance policies, bought at
an extremely low piice, which they will find
on examination cover only accidents occurring
under extremely limited circumstances. The
coupon, slot-machine, and identification con-
tracts costing from ten cents to one dollar are
all of this class and cover travel accidents only.
In buying a general accident insurance
policy the insured should first find out what it
permits him to do. The premium charged
him is based on his occupation, which is given
a definite classification. If he changes his
occupation to one classed by the company as
more hazardous, the benefits are reduced to the
sums provided under that classification. Occu-
pation Is construed to mean the regular trade,
business, or profession of the insured and the
policy covers the hazards incident thereto. In
a broader sense the insured is or should be
covered while doing many things not regularly
a part of his business. Many men like to do
various things about their homes which for
the time being partake of the nature of more
hazardous occupations, such as carpentering,
gardening, or plumbing. The policy prop-
erly covers these hazards as a part of a man's
daily life in the same way that it covers the
hazard of sport apart from professionalism.
As a rule, the policies are not explicit upon
this point, but custom and usage have made
it a principle that the insured may do the vari-
ous odd jobs of life without imperiling the
contract. If the occupation clause is so worded
as not to cover those incidents, then a special
arrangement should be made or another policy
obtained.
The insuring clause of an accident policy
recites that the person is insured against bodily
injury through accidental means and result-
ing directly, independently, and exclusively
of all other causes, in immediate, continuous
and total disability that prevents the
insured from performing any and every kind
of duty pertaining to his occupation. This
can be clearly understood by the insured,
but must be considered in connection with the
Digitized by V^OOQlC
HOW TO TELL A GOOD ACCIDENT POLICY FROM A BAD ONE 12325
exceptions printed in another part of the policy.
Generally speaking, the only exceptions are
for suicide and for intentional injuries self-
inflicted.
The question as to what constitutes an
accident has been frequently before the courts
for adjudication, resulting in the companies
being compelled to make their policies accord
with the decisions. Several years ago a com-
pany was sued on an accident policy held by a
man who had been struck by lightning. At
that time the policies specifically stated that
they did not insure against death or disability
through being struck by lightning. The
case was before a Kansas judge and the
argument was made that, under the terms of
the policy, being struck by lightning was not
an accident but, as counsel defined it, was an
act of God.
"I would have you know, sir," said the
judge, "that an act of God is an accident in
Kansas."
The decision went against the company,
and lightning ceased to be classed as an excep-
tion. It has been decided that the sting of an
insect and the kick of a horse are accidents.
In fact, the decisions of the courts have been
in favor of the insured, where the construc-
tion of "injury through accidental means"
was involved. Sunstroke, freezing, hydro-
phobia, and asphyxiation were all considered
at one time outside the meaning of an acci-
dent policy, but are now covered. The con-
tract, therefore, that contains a long list of
exceptions is not in accord with good practice.
Accidents of travel, for which accident
insurance was originally designed, are now
reckoned so unimportant that the companies
pay double indemnity to their policyholders
who suffer from such. A form of clause is some-
times used providing the double benefits only
in case of the "wrecking or disablement" of
the car in which the insured is a passenger.
Such a clause should therefore be avoided.
Taking too much accident insurance is as
unprofitable as overloading with fire insurance.
As the object of accident insurance is to com-
pensate for the loss of income incurred by dis-
ability, the companies do not pay weekly
indemnity in excess of the weekly earnings
of the insured. The applicant is required to
state what accident insurance he carries and
in what companies. If, in event of injury, it
appears that the weekly indemnity accruing
under the several policies is in excess of his
usual weekly earnings, the companies pay only
a proportionate part. The accident insur-
ance required, therefore, should be based on
a comparison of the average weekly earnings
with the weekly indemnity specified in the
policy for ordinary accidents.
The insured must bear in mind that a
violation of the provisions of the policy, or
misstatements in the schedule of warranties
making up the application, invalidate the
insurance; that an assignment of the policy,
if made, must be certified to the company;
and if a claim is involved, clear proof of inter-
est must be shown; that agents cannot alter or
waive any of the provisions of the policy; and
that any such alterations or waivers must be
endorsed on the policy by the executive officers.
An important provision to study is that
relating to notice of accident. A clause specify-
ing a comparatively short time in which to
notify the company of the occurrence of an
accident causing injury is of doubtful service
to the insured. He may be injured in a
locality where he is a stranger, and rendered
unconscious of reasonable action for a period
of weeks; or, even if in the hands of friends,
there is the possibility of no one being familiar
with the fact that he carried accident insur-
ance. The best clause covering this point is
one requiring the notice to be given within
a reasonable time, and this should be insisted
upon by the insured.
Much of what has been said above applies
with equal force to the provisions regarding
sickness insurance; about the only additional
point worth noting being in connection with
the time the sickness indemnity commences
to accrue. A few companies pay indemnity
from the first day of illness, but many do not
pay for the first week of illness. In other words,
the insured must be ill for more than a week
before the indemnity begins to accrue. It
would be well to consider the aggregate advan-
tages offered by the contract in determining
which of these methods of payment is most
desirable. The insured should note that ill-
ness requiring the services of a regular, certi-
fied physician is the only illness coming under
the terms of the policy.
Finally, the insured should remember that
sickness insurance terminates at the age of
sixty, and that thereafter the companies do not
insure against accidental injury except fatal
accidents, and even this protection ceases at
the age of sixty-five.
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MIKE HALLORAN, OPTIMIST
A TRUE STORY
BY
W. I. SCANDLIN
WHEN did you say you lost it?" asked
Bailey, reporter on The Chr<micl$.
"Fourteen year ago, sor. The
paris green got inter me eyes in the factory
where I was workin', an' they wint out on me
fourteen year ago come nixt month, sor."
"And you mean to tell me you've supported
yourself since then, without your sight? How
in the name of conscience do you do it?"
"By cartin' ashes, sor. I carts 'em away
from the mills and fact'ries an' dumps 'em in
the scows at the city dumps, sor."
"Oh, yes. I suppose you're a contractor
and have men working for you."
"Thruth yer say whin ye call me the con-
tractor, but divil a man does the work fur me,
savin' a small lad that leads the horse."
"And you load from a chute?"
"I sure do, sor, but it's a shoot I works
meself. Every spoonful o' the load goes in
by me shovel, an' I'll trim me load wid anny
man at that, sor. It's of en I hear folks stop
to see me me at work an' they sez:
"'Aw, g'wan! What yer givin' us? He's
not blind.'
"An' thin, whin they comes close, they sort
o' holds their breath an' goes off as if they'd
jest thought o' somethin' that was waitin'
for 'em somewhere else.
"They calls me 'Happy Mike Halloran,'
owin' to me mindin' me own affairs an' keepin'
a cheery look to the world," he went on with
a bit of sigh; "but I feels it pretty sober inside
o' me whin I be lookin' the gayest."
"How much work can you do in a day,
Halloran, as compared to a man who can see ?"
"As much as anny o' them an' more'n
manny, sor. I can handle six to tin loads a
day, accordin' to the len'th o' the trip. I'll
be afther havin' 'em shorter when the new
docks be finished. I'm tryin' me best to git
a free permit on account o' not havin' me
soight. I know there's some o' the other
men gits 'em an' that gives 'em a chance to
bid under us as has to pay; an' whin I git
that, I'll be able to meet the best o' thim,
providin' I can git me a horse agin."
" But I thought you said you had a horse."
"I did till two months back, sor, whin he
took sick o' the glanders and died on me. Thin
I spint ivery last cint o' me money on a baste
that was ricomminded to me as bein' sound,
savin' he was a bit spavined, an' begorra, sor,
in less than a week he wint bad an' the Cruelty
Society took him away an' shot him, sor.
The agent he says to me: 'It's only the luck o'
your bein' blind,' seas he, ' that I don't arrist
yez an' have yez fined,' sez he. Take the boy,
Mag, he's fell asleep," this to his wife, a sweet-
faced little woman, who had been crooning a
lullaby to a bundle of lesser babyhood as
the two men talked.
Halloran rose from his chair by the stove,
which was cold and comfortless, and, stretch-
ing himself to his height of six feet two, dis-
played a figure that would have done credit
to a disciple of Vulcan. He was without
coat or vest, and was in his stocking feet
"That was near two months back, sor; and
wid me horse me luck wint, too, though I be
hopin' it'll be back wid me soon. But it's
hard on Mag an' the kids till I gits on me feet
agin."
"He's the pluckiest man in the world, sir,"
interposed the wife.
"How have you managed since the horse
was taken ? Can you get out of it whole when
you have to hire?"
"It's barely whole I git out of it. I have to
pay two dollars a day for the baste an' feed
him at noon, an' whin the end o' the week
comes there's scarce a dollar left for the rest o'
us. But I have to hire one, two, or three times
a week or me ashes would pile up on me, an'
the superintindints would let out me job on me.
Wid a horse o' me own, me cost o' maintenance
comes down to about fifteen dollars a month,
and leaves tin or twilve a week fur meself."
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
12327
"How about getting work? Have you
much difficulty in finding jobs?"
" Sure there's plenty o' work to be done but
it's the price that sez whether me or some
other feller gits it to do, sor. It's iver the
same quistion: 'How much'll you charge a
load,' an' the man that makes the lowest
price connicts wid the job. But I beat 'em
there on account o' me puttin' the money
they'd spind for drink inter feed for mq
horse, an' of'en I gits the part of a broken
bundle o' hay give me by the feed men at
the big store; an' wance in a while a bag o'
oats is thrun inter me bin at the stable an' I'm
niver a bit the wiser whince it comes. Sure
it's close competition I meets at the business
end, but the boys are good to me on the
outside."
Bailey fumbled his way down the dark,
narrow stairs to the street, with a well-defined
plan in his mind. He spent an hour in the
neighborhood, interviewing the men at the
feed-store and the stable, then he went to the
Club.
The afternoon of the third day following
found him in the stable, awaiting the coming
of Halloran, whom he had summoned by
letter the day before. Presently the blind
man came, his feet grotesquely wrapped in
huge bundles of gunny sacks.
"Hello, Halloran! What do you think of
this horse for your work?" and, leading the
way to a nearby stall, he thrust the amazed
Halloran inside.
" Begorra, sor, I don't know what to think,"
but his hands were running carefully over
the horse's head, neck, shoulders and back,
across its chest and down each . powerful,
well-formed leg.
" He's sound as a nut, sor, not a scratch agin
him annywhere. But what are the shoes doin'
over his back, sor?"
"They're for his new owner, Halloran. Do
you think they'll fit?"
"Do you mane, sor?4 Do you mane "
and Halloran leaned up against the stall in a
dazed sort of a way.
"Yes, that's just what I mean," inter-
rupted Bailey. "The outfit's yours. Your
stall rent's paid for a month, there's a good
supply of feed to start on, the receipts are in
one of the shoes, and with them you'll find
the permit to dump at the new docks. If
you don't make out with the horse, man, I'll
be tempted to get you an auto. You're a
brick, Halloran, and I'm proud to know you."
THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
IV
THE WORLD'S BLACK PROBLEM
BY
B. L. PUTNAM WEALE
THERE is, perhaps, nothing quite so
cruel in the whole world as the law
which has given to more than a hun-
dred millions of human beings coal-faces and
bodies, thus so distinguishing them from the
rest of the human family that this color is held
to be a mark of inferiority.
In Europe, where Negroes are not generally
seen or understood, it may sound like an over-
statement to speak of the race in such uncom-
promising terms; but in the two Americas, in
Africa, and along the vast Asiatic coast line,
the coal-black native is almost universally con-
sidered as an inferior man. This is not at all
strange to those wHo know the full story of
the color conflict.
The whole history of India, for instance,
has been one long story of color preju-
dice. The aboriginal tribes, who still form
a considerable part of the population, were
black, though they were not Negroes; and
there can be no doubt that the Aryans, the
whites who migrated into India countless cen-
turies ago, devised the iron system of castes,
which is as strong to-day as it was thousands
of years ago, to prevent the further mixing of
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
the dominant race with an inferior people.
It is a fact well worth mentioning that castes
in Sanskrit are called colors. The anxiety to
preserve racial purity is common to all the
higher peoples of the world.
The black man is something apart. This
was so much felt even by the Chinese miners
who thronged the Rand during the five
years of the yellow labor experiment that
few condescended to have relations with
Kaffir women, in sharp contrast to the
behavior of Chinese immigrants in the Straits
Settlement, Burmah, Java, and Sumatra —
where they readily mate with many varieties
of brown maidens, and are abnormally proud
of their mixed offspring. That there exists
some law forbidding the mixing with black
blood is, therefore, felt by the yellow men
as well as by white men; and though in
Western Asia some races, the Arabs, for
example, seem to have overcome in some
measure this curious prejudice, the Sudanese
cross-breeds, which are now so numerous, are
considered very inferior to pure-bred brown
men, and at best only a little better than the
coal-blacks.
Nor must it be forgotten that there is an
ethical reason for this profound aversion. The
black man has given nothing to the world. He
has no architecture of his own, no art, no his-
tory, no real religion, unless animism be a
religion. His hands have reared no endur-
ing monuments, save when they have been
forcibly directed by the energies of other races.
The black man — the Negro — is the world's
common slave. He has been a slave in Asia
far more than he has ever been a slave in
America — for his slavery in the cotton-grow-
ing states lasted but a few short decades,
whereas in Asia it has certainly endured for
three thousand years, if not twice that long.
Fate seems to have marked the African down.
No matter what one may say against the
Asiatic, it is a fact that he has contributed
immensely to the civilization of the world.
He has founded every religion that exists; he
has built most enduring monuments and
temples, and he possesses in many ways a far
more subtle and speculative brain than the
European. In poetry and in art the debt
Europe owes Asia is immense, far greater than
is commonly supposed. Hebrew, Chinese,
Japanese, Arab, Hindoo, Persian — all have
contributed their ordered quota; all have had
and will continue to have a profound influence
on the world's progress. Not so the black man.
He is the child of nature — the one untutored
man who was a slave in the days of Solomon
and is still a slave, though his manumission
throughout the world is one of the great land-
marks in the history of the nineteenth century.
Thus, the Negro has always been held up as
a perfect example of arrested development.
Though he has for three thousand years been
in contact with other peoples, he has remained
a child of nature, despised and ill-treated
whenever possible.
If it is true that the black man is the object
of common hatred of all the higher races in the
world, then the Black Problem must finally
become the world's greatest racial problem,
though not perhaps until much time has elapsed
and the Negroes have immensely multiplied.
This problem will be as troublesome to the
rulers of the British Empire as it will be to
the rulers of the great American republic;
in fact, it will be a problem for all European
Powers who have acquired the rights of emi-
nent domain in the black man's lands. For
the black man is a great breeder of men, and
in a few scores of years, when he has in Africa
the same ease and security of life as he has to-
day in the Southern States of America, he will
be multiplying prodigiously.
Nobody really knows how many Negroes
there are already in the world; it is supposed
that with the cross-breeds there are about one
hundred millions. Accepting this figure as
correct, and accepting also the calculation that
white doubles in eighty years, yellow or brown
in sixty years, but black in jorty years, then it
is evident that by the close of the present cen-
tury the blacks will have so greatly multiplied
that they may attempt to force themselves where
they are not wanted. There will be an overflow
— an overspilling of black men. By the end
of the present century there should certainly be
three hundred million Negroes in the world.
For by that time it may be assumed that,
should Europe's overlordship of Africa remain
more or less undisturbed, the black man will
be educated and either Christianized or Islam-
ized in mass. The whole vast African con-
tinent will also be intersected by tens of
thousands of miles of railroad, and many other
improvements will have made this great region
bear a very different relation to the rest of the
world. There may be then an entirely dif-
ferent connection between the western coast
of Africa (where the slaves used to come from)
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
12329
and the eastern coasts of America, since the
coasts of these two continents are separated
by only half the expanse of waters that sepa-
rate Eastern Asia and America. Brazil, which
is only a thousand miles away from West
Africa, will most certainly be forced to put up
exclusion laws such as would satisfy the most
rabid Californian of to-day. The ten million
Negroes of the Southern States of America
should, in a hundred years, number some
forty millions of souls, and the Black Belt of
to-day will then be truly black.
It may be further assumed that the tension
between whites and blacks throughout the
world will slowly increase rather than decrease
as close-packing grows more marked and
mutual weaknesses are better understood.
The blacks in America will have taken cog-
nizance of the fact that hundreds of millions
of their brethren in Africa are rapidly going
through a process of civilization and learn-
ing their true relations to the rest of the world.
It is quite conceivable that intercourse such
as to-day exists between England and Canada
and England and Australasia may one day
exist in a modified form between the blacks
of America and the blacks of Africa.
THE NEGRO A COLONIAL PERIL
It is probable that his political activity will
be a greater cause for anxiety than his infil-
tration into regions from which he can be very
easily excluded by artful measures. It is where
he stands entrenched on his own soil that he is
really to be feared. Already South Africa
has its color problem, arising from the fact that,
though there are many whites there, there are far
more blacks who retain strong tribal organiza-
tions. This problem, while not yet as vexatious
as the problemin theSouthernStates of America,
is bound to become more and more compli-
cated from year to year. In North America,
come what may, the whites should always
have a large numerical superiority, but in
South Africa the position will always be exactly
the reverse.
To-day, in South Africa, there are about
one million whites settled among seven or eight
millions of men of the Bantu race. The prob-
abilities are that this proportion of seven to one
will be steadily maintained in spite of all white
emigration, since the Bantu race breeds very
much faster than any white race and should
actually increase its fecundity as the ravages
of disease are steadily lessened. The dis-
tinguished writer, Olive Schreiner, in a remark-
able letter written on the eve of the unification
of South Africa, pointed out that the handling of
the Kaffir problem would finally be the making
or unmaking of South Africa, and that only
by devoting the best thought to the matter
would great dangers be eliminated. And yet
as will shortly be shown, South Africa will
be far more able to handle its problem than
North Africa.
While it is an undoubted fact that, racially
considered, the black man is a type of arrested
development, it is also a fact that close pres-
sure and a high civilization around him slowly
force him to* a great simulated improvement,
if nothing else. This is the case in South
Africa; and even along the coasts of Africa a
steady improvement is already to be seen. It
may be that when the European lever is
removed — as it was at the time of the French
Revolution in Haiti by the formidable guer-
rilla chief, Toussaint L'Ouverture — the Negro
relapses into a sort of semi-barbarous state;
but that does not detract from the fact that
so long as he feels the pressure around him
and sees the example of a higher civilization
the Negro inevitably improves.
In America, of course, the greatest progress
of all has been made. Colored lawyers and
professional men are becoming more and more
numerous, and though the general average
of culture rises higher very slowly, it is undoubt-
edly now generally rising. In the past it has
been possible for the Negro to slip back; it
will become less possible in the future since
the vast growth in the world's population, with
the new phenomena of close-packing, railroads
and industrialism, will tend to hold him tight
in a manner which has never been possible
before.
Though a steady improvement is the order
of the day, it must not be supposed that this
means any diminution of the dangers of the
Black Problem. On the contrary, as the
Negro becomes increasingly intelligent and
his veneer of civilization more evident, in
certain regions of the world he must have
an increasing influence on his fellow-man. At
first this influence may be counted on to show
itself in ways which will occasion comment
only from the far-seeing; but as the Negro
becomes increasingly aware of his unalterable
racial or color solidarity — as well as so
numerous that his opinion will have to receive
attention for political reasons — he will be
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
recognized as a real danger. For he will
finally constitute an imperium in imperio, wher-
ever he lives among alien communities; and
he may even demand as his right that, just as he
is restricted in many ways by the white man,
so shall he restrict the white man in certain
other ways. In other words, he will demand
his own reservations, his own lands.
Fortunately such black dangers are far-off;
they cannot possibly have much importance to
the white races until the blacks are far more
numerous, far better educated, and far better
organized than they can be during the present
century. But there is the other more dread
possibility in North Africa, which is quite a
different question.
A BLACK MOSLEM EMPIRE
It has been well said that nothing really
improves the Negro except cross-breeding or
catching hold of some superior creed. In
certain parts of Africa — notably in Uganda
— the Christianizing process is growing apace,
though it appears to make little progress in
South Africa, the reason possibly being that the
Bantu race is not a pure breed. In this respect,
the South African is similar to the cross-breeds
of the Sudan, who certainly will always embrace
Islamism in preference to Christianity and who
have some fine qualities — matchless courage,
for instance.
It is with such races that the greatest black
danger lies — especially if Islamism shows
renewed vitality and begins once more its
triumphant march across the waste places of
the world. For it is an undoubted fact that
those Negroes who have embraced Islam show
a certain manliness and could form strong states
and organize armies and obey laws, if the
proper incentives existed. These are the first
steps toward a higher civilization — toward
constituting a Black Problem very different from
that which exists in the United States, where
the black man is simply a copyist of the white
man.
For when the black man has a real sense
of nationality — the nationality of color — a
sense which he could very easily acquire in
Africa in a different form from any he can
acquire in white man's lands, he will undoubt-
edly commence organizing himself on a basis
hitherto not dreamed of.
Though the Negro may revolt more or less
successfully in the many different parts of the
world where he has been transplanted, with a
very good chance of temporary success, it is
certain that it is only in his own country and
in combination with Islamism and its great
representatives, the Arabs, that any permanent
advantage would accrue to him. Omdurman
may seem like the last word on this subject; but
Omdurman was in reality only the first word —
the tentative expression of something which
may one day be attempted on a colossal scale.
Abyssinia has conclusively proved that within
certain limits the white man is already pre-
pared to stay his hand and avoid conflicts the
results of which are out of all proportion to
their cost; and the manner in which people
used to speak a few years ago of the holy
man Senoussi shows that this dread of an all-
Mohammedan movement has long been present.
It is true that after being crushingly defeated,
Italy abandoned the Abyssinian campaign
from motives of economy and not from fear,
but this does not detract from the force of the
argument that one day it may not be worth
while to oppose the African.
ENGLAND AN AFRICAN BULWARK
The real barrier to such African uprisings
is England in Egypt and what that occupation
stands for. For though France is a far greater
power in North Africa than England, the
peculiar geography of the black continent con-
fines French possessions in such a manner as
to render them less susceptible to great color
shocks. It is the Arab — the roving Arab —
who is France's especial enemy, and the great
desert to the south of the French possessions
is a more effective bar than millions of soldiery.
Farther to the East the great roadway of the
Nile communicates with the heart of Africa
— with the Congo states, the great lakes —
and makes it possible for vast movements to be
easily commenced, once some organization has
united the men of Africa in a common cause.
It is England's duty to guard against these
movements because in Africa, as in Asia, it is
the great representative of the principle of
white conquest.
For the same movement that is now going
on in Asia must one day commence in Africa,
and when it does commence it will bode no
good for the white man. The white man,
while he is doubtlessly convinced that he is now
tightening his hold on Africa in a great variety
of ways, is doing nothing of the sort — save
where he is really settled on the soil as he is in
South Africa and in small portions of Algeria.
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
12331
Elsewhere his claims to dominion rest on the
slenderest foundations; he is administering
vast regions only because the African has yet
no reason to resist such administration; and
just as the 'eighties of the last century saw the
scramble for Africa commence, so may some
decade of the present century see the scuttle
begin. Would Commodore Perry have ever
believed that Japan could beat Russia and
annex Korea?
The re-shaping of the Far East commenced
the re-shaping of India and of Turkey. The
force of the present movement has spent itself
for the time being on the shores of the Nile and
the Bosphorus, because the times are not yet
ripe for the movement to go any farther. The
next great shock in Asia, however, will travel
much farther and will produce much more
abiding results; and as that next shock will most
certainly come — unless very wise counsels
prevail — during the lifetime of the present gen-
eration, it may be assumed as a fact that one
day the white nations will have to fight again
for their supremacy in Africa on a new basis,
just as they are already beginning to fight for
their supremacy in Asia.
For as the silent struggle in armaments in
Europe goes on and strength is accumulated
for an Armageddon which should never be
contemplated, the watchful Asiatic and the
stirring African understand more clearly the
meaning of the dread words that are so con-
stantly entoned: "Might is right." And
when it comes down to a question of butcher's
work, the Arab and the cross-breed — as
well as the Zulu — have nothing to learn.
A FEDERATION OF DARK RACES
It may be argued that all this has nothing
to do with the black question proper, since
the prime movers in the suggested movements
must still be Arabs, now as they were in the
past. Yet this is just why it has everything to
do with the problem — for the building of rail-
roads, the cutting of roads, the improvement
of communications . and conditions generally,
the spread of industrialism — in a word, the
spread of European civilization, instead of bind-
ing the man of Africa to the white man, as
people seem to think, will merely educate him
to a sense of his present position, as the Asiatic
has already been educated. They will incline
him toward those who are racially not far
removed from him, and who, because they
understand him and have inter-bred with him,
will be far readier than the white man to
evolve a scheme of government which will
satisfy him.
It is the Arab — and with the Ar$tb the
Turk — toward whom the Negro will be
inevitably pushed; and for political purposes
to-day the geographical division between West-
ern Asia and Northern Africa exists no more
than it has in the past. The Arab certainly
roves over a great part of Africa; and though
the trading dhow does not go much south of
Zanzibar, the Arab as slave-driver or dealer
is almost everywhere in Africa. It is the pecu-
liar mental bent of the white man — his delib-
erate blindness in colored lands, his desire
at all costs to secure administrative uniformity
and to conform to received opinions — which
in the last analysis invites revolt. He has pity
for the weak but no sense of sympathy, no
inclination to understand their point of view.
When — as in the Southern States of America,
in Brazil, in the West Indies, in parts of South
Africa — the colored man is inexorably assigned
a definite place by mere force of numbers or
from other dominant circumstances, and is
from these peculiar circumstances necessary
for the prosperity and even the existence of the
white man, then only does the white man agree
to accept the colored person at a different
valuation. And in doing so he manages to
make him an imitator of his faults and his
virtues. But in the greater part of Africa the
black man will never try to make himself
the closest imitation possible of the white man;
nor can he become half- white in his thoughts
as he does elsewhere. The African climate
and African conditions absolutely prevent that.
NEGRO SAMSON — WHITE DELILAH
The Christianizing of the Negro — weaning
him from the militant bent of mind which he
assumes under Islam — can effect a good deal
toward diminishing the dangers which have
been roughly outlined; and, therefore, the
Christianizing of the Negro will have in future
days much greater political importance than it
has now. Africa is the one region where the
spread of Christianity is to be heartily desired.
If the Negro, in measure as he is civilized,
goes to Islamism, he must become a greater
peril; if he is Christianized, his destructive
strength is stripped from him as was Sam-
son's strength when his locks were cut. The
part the white man is politically called upon
to play in Africa is the part of Delilah, and
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THE CONFLICT OF COLOR
no other. For over the length and breadth of
Africa the white man can never be much more
than a temporary schoolmaster, who will be
listened to in proportion to the large-minded-
ness that he displays in dealing with unfamil-
iar problems.
His present success as an administrator
has nothing whatever to do with the ultimate
problem; for administrative ability is a peculiar
mechanical talent which almost all white men
have, a talent bearing scant relation to more
serious matters and consisting in colored
lands largely in solving questions of elementary
finance and elementary justice. There have
been few more able administrators than Lord
Cromer in modern times, yet his entire political
policy in Egypt was wrong-headed, however
clever his finance may have been. This is
now generally admitted, and this is a good
example of how little such work affects the
graver and more permanent issues.
The black problem for the white man may
thus be finally divided into two distinct halves:
— what may be called internal black prob-
lems, and the great external black problem.
The internal black problems are more or less
local issues. The future of the Negro in
America, of the native in Madagascar, in the
Philippines, and in the countless islands of
the Atlantic and the Pacific, cannot affect the
progress of the world very materially. Here
the man of color, if he is not "cribbed, cabined,
and confined," is at least so situated that the
white man can and will effectively control him.
In all these cases the black man has been
either for longer or shorter periods the obedient
follower of the white man. He has been the
white man's imitator, his henchman. He may
rebel, but he cannot bring about a great and
abiding revolution in the relations between the
races unless, as was the case with the French
in Haiti a century ago, vacillation and folly
become the order of the day.
The outer problem is very different. It is
the great problem. It is the problem of the
future of all Africa to which extended refer-
ence has already been made and it is a problem
which must be considered as it is — with the
grievous limitations of the whites. Just as a
leading British soldier did not hesitate to say
recently that the north of India contains
materials sufficient to shake half a dozen
empires to their foundations, so does Northern
Africa with its mixture of Negro and Arab —
not to speak of limitless Central Africa —
contain materials
little understood.
as combustible and as
THE NEGRO'S ARAB SCHOOLMASTER
The total conclusion is not very satisfac-
tory — far less satisfactory than it has been in
the case of the detailed consideration of Asia.
The subject is to-day too complex, the details
too confused to be properly handled. The
Negro must be conquered to improve and the
only man who can really conquer and improve
him in his African home seems to be the Arab.
The future of the Arab — during the present
century at least — hinges largely on the future
of Turkey and the extent to which the modern
idea of a state, with all that it implies, can be
diffused over the vast regions which still
remain in solution.
But far more savagery must be expected in
this quarter of the colored world than in any
other part. This is the one region where
no mercy need be expected, where the old
Crusader's idea is still a useful beacon. The
need for establishing an Asiatic balance of
power which shall exist independent of Europe,
a need referred to in a previous article,
becomes more pressing when one realizes how
much in Northern Africa will depend on this,
and how intimately the Negro and the cross-
breed will be affected in a few decades by
the march of events in their close proximity
across the Suez cuttings.
The sun is the white man's last ally in hot
countries, just as the snow is Russia's last ally.
The sun speaks the first and last word: it says
rise and fight with blind rage, and it says lie
down and die silently like a fatalist — because
it is all no use fighting against men who pos-
sess the magic contained in cold-air reservoirs.
The sun has marked men with its taint, more
and more darkly as the Equator is approached,
until ebony black and rank cannibalism show
the depths to which mortals can be reduced.
That the nobler races are called upon to meas-
ure strength vWth such is itself ignoble. Yet
it is not from these that so much is to be
feared as from lighter-colored men. It is these
men who may rise against Europe and lead the
others — it is these who may inspire a general
black revolt, thus upsetting the confident
calculations of those who, born and bred in
temperate climes, know no more of men's
thoughts and ambitions in distant lands
than they do of the thoughts and ambitions
of the men of Mars.
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THE WAY TO HEALTH
The average man's working efficiency might be increased fifty per cent. The development of
vitality is the keynote of the new worldwide movement for health. Its aim is to increase the power to
live and work, rather than merely to cure or even to prevent disease. As a part of this movement,
The World's Work wiU publish from month to month the experiences of individuals in their
search for health and power.
Dr. Luther H. Gulick, author of "The Efficient Life" and of "Mind and Work," will select
important and typical experiences from correspondence coming to him and will suggest constructive
measures for more efficient living. Those desiring such suggestions should write fully to The
World's Work about their personal habits — hours of work, sleep, recreation, eating, clothing,
temperament and health experiences. Particular attention will be paid to communications in regard
to children, and from those who feel that their power is beginning to wane through old age or from
overwork.
THE CONSUMPTIVE'S HOLY GRAIL
BY
THE AUTHOR OF "HOW I GOT WELL"
I AM set up by a beneficent Providence at
the corner of the road to warn you to flee
from the Hebetude that is to follow."
I have been through the "hebetude," and I
know what a vale of tears it is. I have
suffered and coughed and sweltered till I
know the agony of body and soul which
it brings. I have counted the endless,
gloomy, cheerless days that come before the
cure. But at last relief came and I could
look back like Dante at his Inferno. It is
now a year since I returned to normal life,
und I am a stronger and more vigorous man
than ever before.
The country in the Southwest to which
health-seekers go is a vast one, though it is not
nearly so extensive as it once was, or as it is
still believed to be by many in the East. A
decade ago Colorado was considered the best
of all places to go, with southern California
probably second on the list — while "any-
where in the West" was considered good
enough. Gradually, a costly experience has
pretty accurately marked off the country that
is most desirable, so that it is now possible
to say something definite and certain.
If we put one point of a compass on Albu-
querque, N. M., as a centre, and the other
point on Boulder, Colo., for a radius, and
describe a circle beginning on the Mexican
boundary line on the west and touching the
Rio Grande on the east, we will circumscribe
this Land-of-the-Well Country. The region
near the centre of the circle will comprise
the heart of the land to which people now go
for "climate"; and, in general, the nearer
one goes to the centre of the circle, the more
nearly ideal will be the conditions for the cure
of the average case.
All over this great circle, and even beyond
it, we may find "health-seekers," but gener-
ally those who are near the outskirts are per-
sons who have become accustomed to living
and working in the mild climate and who are
making the country their home.
Nearer the centre of the circle lies the great
broad tableland where the business of actively
curing the disease is carried on more exten-
sively and more successfully than anywhere
else in the world. And it is this section which,
as time goes on, is likely to become better and
better known as "The Land-of-the-Well Coun-
try." Here is a large territory where are to be
found the most nearly ideal conditions of
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THE WAY TO HEALTH
dry air, sunshine, altitude, and warm weather, great section one vast sanatorium. Persons
In these factors, which are the fundamental who are dying with tuberculosis in the East
desiderata in the cure of tuberculosis, this quickly respond to this wonderfully mild and
"THE LAND-OF-THE-WELL COUNTRY"
The region within the circle has the most favorable climate
section excels Colorado as much as Colorado soothing climate; and with scientific treat-
excels New York or Massachusetts. ment most of them ultimately get well, or at
The climatic conditions have made this least very much better. That this is not a reek-
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"335
less statement has been scientifically demon-
strated by the work of the famous sanatoria in
this country. The actual results of one of
them, covering a period of eight years and
including several hundred patients, show that
— among those who went before their disease
became advanced — none died, 30 per cent
improved, and 70 per cent, were cured.
It is this matter of climate which attracts
the health-seeker to this country, and he is of
course very properly interested in it. I sup-
pose that the consumptive who reads this will
be asking for advice whether he should go in
search of climate or remain and follow the
cure in his own country. A proper answer
to such a question is very hard to give. So
much depends on the individual case, and the
particular circumstances of each, that it is im-
possible to lay down any general rule whether
all should emigrate to the new land or not.
But, after all, my advice to all those who can
go is to do so. I am wiser than when I started
out for this country, and have lost many of the
delusions with which I started. One of the
things I have learned is that climate is not
a specific for tuberculosis; it is not a cure-all,
and will not work miracles. I know also that
cures are being made every day in all parts of
the East — which is something that I did not
know before, and could hardly have believed
in face of the insistent advice of doctors and
other persons to "go West." But there is
absolutely no doubt — in spite of any argu-
ments to the contrary — that a land with a
climate like this offers a surer and quicker
and much happier road to health than can be
found anywhere else.
The peculiar climatic conditions are due,
of course, to the physical character of the
land and to its remoteness from the sea.
Nature has set up a series of great mountain
barriers to the West, which keep off all the
rains from the Pacific. What little rain the
country does get comes during a couple of
months in mid-summer, when the prevailing
winds blow from the South. For ten months
of the year practically no rain falls, the
total annual rainfall varying from eight to
twelve inches, as compared with from forty
to fifty or more inches in the East The
absence of rain produces a twofold effect —
an almost cloudless sky, so that the sunshine
is practically constant, and an exceedingly
dry atmosphere. The air is so dry that one
feels its peculiar parching effect in his nose
and throat for weeks after his arrival; while
the sunshine seems to bathe everything in a
flood of mellow gold.
There is, in addition, the important fac-
tor of altitude. The whole country slopes
from north to south with a general altitude
of from 4,000 to 6,000 feet. It is the constant
sunshine balanced over against the altitude
which produces such an equable climate, for
the summers and winters are very nearly alike
in these mountain regions. Where the alti-
tude falls below 4,000 feet, this climatic bal-
ance is not so marked. Such places as El
Paso, whose altitude is 3,700 feet; or Tucson,
with 2,400 feet; or Phoenix, with 1,100 feet,
though they are ideal for nine or ten months
in the year, are too hot during the summer
for the best results.
HALF THE PEOPLE ARE HEALTH-SEEKERS
One cannot be in the Southwest for any
length of time without realizing that the
impress and the influence of the health-seeker
are everywhere. It is estimated that there are
50,000 tubercular invalids in Colorado, New
Mexico, and Arizona; and though it is impos-
sible ever to know the number with any
degree of accuracy, I believe that the estimate is
too small. It is a fact that all of the towns and
cities are filled almost to overflowing. If
the health-seekers and their families were to
leave, the country would probably lose more
than half of its population. A large part of
the business of the land consists in supplying
the needs of these people, providing board-
ing-houses and institutions where they may
live, as well as stores and shops where they
may get the ordinary necessities of life.
There are three well-known alternatives for
the health-seeker in this country: the sana-
torium, the boarding-house, and the ranch;
and I propose to say something of each in turn.
My own experience was gained chiefly in a
sanatorium.
There are already numerous well-known
institutions in Colorado, New Mexico, and
Arizona, and every year the number is con-
siderably increased. They vary in size and
equipment from establishments nm by phy-
sicians in houses of their own, to great insti-
tutions like the "Agnes Memorial* * in Denver,
which accommodates more than 150 patients
and represents an investment of several hundred
thousand dollars. The type of architecture
also varies from a single large building to
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THE WAY TO HEALTH
institutions which provide an individual tent,
or an individual cottage, for every patient.
The rates at all of the better sanatoria are
about the same, varying with the service ren-
dered, from $10 to $25 per week, which in-
cludes everything. In the East there are
numerous endowed or charitable institutions
where none but free patients are received.
In Denver the "Agnes Memorial" is partly
charitable, costing about $10 per week, and
the great "Jewish National" is entirely free
to Jew and Gentile alike. But most of the
institutions of the Southwest are purely pri-
vate, and are run as business ventures. They
are none the less excellent, and this fact is to
be taken as indicative only of the f avorableness
of the locality for the curing of the disease.
THE SANATORIUM IS THE GRAIL
When I went to live in one of these institu-
tions, I found the actual situation much dif-
ferent from what I had supposed it to be. I
expected to go to a hospital where I would
find sickly looking people who would make
life miserable by their incessant, heart-break-
ing coughing. In fact, I had gone purely
as an experiment, because I had proved to my-
self that I was not capable of working out my
own case; I intended to stay but a month or so,
and then move on. How I changed my mind
and determined to fight it out to the end has
already been told in "How I Got Well."
I found that the patients did so little cough-
ing that I wondered whether they had any
trouble whatever — until I learned that any
patient's cough will very much decrease if he
strictly follow the rest-cure. In appearance,
they were more healthy looking than the aver-
age person in ordinary life. All of them
seemed happy and contented, and I wondered
even more, until I found the reason — they
were getting well and they knew it. There
were men and women varying in ages from
twenty to forty — though one man over fifty
years of age left the sanatorium cured while I
was there — and they came from all parts
of the country. The feeling of being in a hos-
pital disappeared after the first day, for there
was nothing to foster it, and everything to
counteract it. Every patient had a cottage of
his own, and the continuous life in the open
air made one feel as if he were camping out,
with all wants cared for.
The idea of the sanatorium includes a com-
plete isolation from all the cares and burdens
of ordinary life, so that the patient may devote
his entire time to the seeking of his cure.
Continuous life in the mild out-of-doors is
required. Absolute rest, most of the time spent
on one's back, is strictly enforced; and this
change in mode of life is a revelation to the
invalid who has been accustomed to follow
the bent of his nervous inclination, whether it
be in climbing mountains or riding horse-
back. One is not even allowed to walk an
extra step if he has fever, and usually such a
patient is put to bed until it is gone.
In the matter of food, the patient is allowed
all that he can eat of the most nutritious varie-
ties, chiefly meat, milk, and raw eggs. Most
of the patients were fed six times daily, and
the results of the forced feeding would become
strikingly apparent in the gain of" a couple of
pounds or more in weight at the end of the
week. Everything was designed for comfort,
and everything done in the most careful and
scientific manner; if, considering his condition,
one may be happy in any place this side of
eternity, it is in such a place as this.
There are, of course, many persons who
cannot go to a sanatorium. If they could in
some way learn the lesson which the sanato-
rium teaches, I believe that most of them would
get well. It is the enforcement of the routine
— life in the open air all the time; absolute,
continuous rest; the very best of food, and as
much of it as possible — together with the
scientific care of the sanatorium which makes
it valuable. All of these things the patient
could get in his own home — possibly; but
the cold fact is that he never does get them.
It is his ignorance, his lack of sense, his entire
lack of experience in the matter of proper
treatment, which makes the case of the aver-
age patient in his own home so hopeless as
it is. And just so it is his increased knowl-
edge and experience which come from life in
the sanatorium which will cheer him up as he
sees his cure approaching closer every day.
I have been appalled in my journey through
this country by the lack of sense and the
refusal to profit by the experience of others,
which is shown by the health-seeker. He
refuses absolutely to consider himself a sick
man, and this is his big mistake. He per-
sists in the notion that he can live the life of the
ordinary gad-about tourist, and that the
climate will in some way make him well; or he
starves himself from both food and fresh air
in the dismal environment of the ordinary
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boarding-house, and then curses the climate
and the world in general. The truth is that
the majority of these people fail because they
have gone about their cure in the wrong way.
By the life which they lead they make it impos-
sible for the climate to do them any good; they
destroy the recuperative power which they
would have if they lived in the right manner.
THE BOARDING-HOUSE A FALSE BEACON
I spent several months in boarding-houses,
and know the life that is led in them, and
the results which it produces. All of the
resort towns in the Southwest are filled with
boarding-houses, and in the winter the board-
ing-houses are full of "lungers." They flock
to such towns as Santa F£, Albuquerque,
Silver City, El Paso, Phoenix, and Tucson,
literally by the thousands, and in those towns
one sees them constantly, everywhere; in
Denver, where they were proverbially thick a
few years ago, one scarcely sees them at all —
though, of course, there are many of them in
the city. It is useless to describe these board-
ing-houses, for boarding-houses are the same
throughout the world — some good, some very
bad; most are indifferent. All of them are
more or less dingy and poorly provided with
comforts, even for a well man. And in this
country, the Southwest, where everybody is
abominably fed, the boarding-house is cor-
respondingly poor. As long as a person
is able to take care of himself, he is
welcome; it is only the sick man who finds
it hard to get a place. Charity is largely a
matter of viewpoint. If one tries to take
a sick man on a stretcher into a boarding-
house in the East, or one who by his looks
and his incessant coughing proclaims his
feared disease, he will hardly be received with
open arms. And if we remember how many
times that very thing is tried in such a city as
Denver, we can hardly censure coldness and a
lack of charity.
As a matter of fact, the sick consumptive
is not wanted; he is feared, and very properly
so, in the average case, for he makes no pre-
tense of following even the simplest of sani-
tary rules. And why should any one be com-
pelled even by charity to take him in ? Such
a person should remember that he makes extra
work and extra trouble; and especially, that
where he goes well people will not go. He has
a sorrowful time of it, certainly, but he has
no right to inflict his sorrow on those about him.
He should bear these things in mind, and con-
sider that he makes misery enough as it is;
above all, he should be cheerful and not a crank.
I still have a vivid recollection of the hopeless,
gloomy days that followed one another in my
own case, and how hard it was to keep a brave
face. But I tried hard to fight like a man
should fight, and on one of the gloomiest days
I copied this from the "Last Days of Pompeii"
(which I was reading), on the fly-leaf of my
memo-book:
"There is but one Philosophy, though
there are a thousand schools — and its name
t is Fortitude." And and I wrote, after the
passage I marked, lest I should forget:
"Lungers Remember!"
NO EMPLOYMENT TO BE FOUND
I cannot refrain from speaking of the per-
sons who came to this country in search of
work. The thing to be said is: Let no one
come expecting work, because he can't work
and get well at the same time — and because
there is no work to do. If he could rope
steers, or wield a pick and shovel as a miner,
he might get employment. But this is a land
of few industries. For years it has been
flooded with health-seekers looking for light
work, and they have already gotten all there
is to do. " But," I can hear some one protest,
"it is a case of necessity, and work is the only
alternative. What then?" Well, nothing!
He can't get work, so let him face the matter
calmly. He is better off in his own country
without money than in this strange land.
I have said very little of the ranch, but I have
done so purposely, for there is very little to be
said. It is enough to say that a ranch is an
impossible place for a tubercular invalid.
The Western "ranch" is an elastic term. It
may be the barren land around a "squatter's"
shack, or it may be a tract as large as an
Eastern county, or it may be anything between
the two. But, whatever it is, it is no place
for a consumptive. It is a place of hard
work and privation, with, indeed, hardly
enough of life's necessities for the average
well man, and a sick man is as much out of
place there as he would be in a coal mine. It
is hard indeed to understand, for one who has
been in this country and knows what conditions
really are, how the idea ever got abroad that
"roughing it" would cure tuberculosis: it has
killed thousands, and if the foolish belief con-
tinues to persist it will kill thousands more.
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SECOND ARTICLE
FROM MINNESOTA TO THE SEA
HOW THE RAILROADS OPENED THE NORTHWEST — A NEW EMPIRE
OF VAST FORESTS AND ONE OF THE GRANARIES OF THE WORLD
BY
JAMES J. HILL
WHILE the development of the Ameri-
can Northwest occupied but the
space of a single lifetime, it has
affected the past more profoundly and will
influence the future more widely than many
events of greater historic moment. It has
stimulated and financed immigration. It
has supplied a large share of the world's food.
It has given homes to an army of workers who
began with little or no capital. It has revo-
lutionized some industries and created others.
It has opened opportunity for the increase of
wealth and for human progress. It is worth
while to examine in some detail the causes, the
proportions, and the future relations of a
growth which daily familiarity has not yet
robbed of its marvels.
However each event may be bound to every
other in the general scheme of things, it is
certainly true that the development of the
Northwest has a wide reaction upon human
life and history. A high scientific authority
says that "the central portion of North Amer-
ica affords the largest intimately connected
field which is suited to the uses of our race."
Land is a first and indispensable human
requirement. It is the main support and
resource of man. The imperial area of the
American Northwest, using that term in its
broadest meaning, constitutes one of the
largest, most compact, and most productive
resources of the whole human race. We are
dealing with a great opportunity and a precious
possession.
It is by no accident that the cruel and
rapacious gold-hunters, Cortez and Pizarro,
are associated with the invasion of this con-
tinent on the south, while the first-comers to
the Northwest were Hennepin, Marquette, and
La Salle. The lowest ambition of the latter
was to win a new empire for the king. The
highest was to Christianize the Indian tribes
then inhabiting these wilds. Therefore, seren-
ity and elevation of thought mark the earliest
annals of our central valley. Behind explorers
and missionaries marched settlers of corre-
sponding quality; men of stern mind and sturdy
frame, whose virtues have colored the lives of
their descendants. So the Northwest grew and
became the most signal instance of the rise
of states and the reward of industry. How
sudden this rise, how great the reward, one
comprehends best after comparing the oak of
the present with the acorn of half a century ago.
In 1850 "The Northwest" was a term of
vague meaning. It applied to territory begin-
ning west of the Alleghanies, with Ohio, and
stretching southward and westward to include
the greater portion of the Louisiana Purchase.
Sometimes it was held to include portions of
the Pacific Coast, then almost as unknown
as another continent. The population of the
portion north of the Missouri and west of
Indiana showed the following gafins between
1850 and 1900:
States
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota Ter.
North Dakota
South Dakota
Total
1850
851,470
305.39I
192,214
6,077
1,355,15*
1900
4,821,550
2,069,042
2,231,853
i,75i,354
319,146
4oi,57o
",594,5i5
In addition to the 11,594,555 population of
this group, Kansas and Nebraska had 2,536,795
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i2339
MODERN TRANSPORTATION METHODS IN THE NORTHWEST
A Great Northern yard with eighteen miles of track, capable of accommodating 2,200 cars. In 1908 the Great Northern
had 43,890 freight cars on its lines, almost thirty times the equipment of the old Manitoba road in 1879
COMMON CARRIERS IN ST. PAUL IN 1858
The Red River carts established connection with the Hudson Bay Company post at Winnipeg in 1843.
trade at St. Paul was chiefly in buffalo robes, furs, ginseng, and cranberries,
sippi in 1856 and the first flour exported the next year
In 1858 the
The first wheat was sent down the Missis-
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people; and Montana, Idaho, Washington, and
Oregon 1,336,740 more. Without, therefore,
including those other states of the interior basin
generally reckoned a part of the Northwest,
these twelve commonwealths contained in 1900
more than fifteen million inhabitants. Their
population was practically multiplied by twelve
in the last half of the last century. To-day
they have millions more people than they had
ten years ago. This growth has no parallel.
Never before was a wilderness of such propor-
tions reclaimed; never before did a population
so increase within the same limits of time.
The contrast in other respects is even more
THE OFFICE AND WAREHOUSE OF MR. JAMES J. HILL IN ST. PAUL IN 1868
For trading northwest up the Red River, ten years before the purchase of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, which ha&
grown into the Great Northern system
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12341
startling. The Federal authorities who, in 1850,
gathered all the national statistics into a single
modest volume, had not only fewer activities
to chronicle but they followed a different
standard. Aside from enumerating popu-
lation, they were interested mainly in three
things; the spread of education, the growth
and extension of religious activity, and the
progress of agriculture. Along these lines
only can a comparison be made. The num-
ber of pupils attending colleges and public
schools in the middle of the last century in the
territory under consideration was 274,395.
In 1902 it was more than three and a half mil-
lions in the country extending from Lake
Michigan to the Pacific. The tables of occu-
pation, the opening of farm and railroad and
factor)-, present the change even more vividly.
In 1850 there was practically no agriculture
beyond the western borders of Illinois,
Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota Territory.
THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD AND THE PASSING
OF THE RIVER STEAMER
A RED RIVER TRADER AT ST. PAUL
A great commerce was carried on the river northwest from St. Paul between 1850 and 1878. It was at its height
in 1858, the same year that 1,090 steamers came up the Mississippi to St. Paul. As the railroads grew, the river traffic
declined. The remnant of it is carried by two steamboats and twelve barges from Grand Forks, N. D.
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TRANSPORTATION ON THE MISSOURI RIVER IN MONTANA IN 1887
The Missouri and the Yellowstone Rivers have been supplanted as carriers by the Great Northern and the Northern
Pacific railroads, and at present the steamers carry practically no traffic
ONE OF THE SURVIVORS OF THE RIVER TRAFFIC
A steamer on the Snake River south of Lewiston, Idaho, in a country without adequate railroad service. The same
kind of transportation existed on the Red River northwest from St. Paul in the 'fifties and 'sixties
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"343
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ST. PAUL IN 1861
The graded track in the foreground was built down to the river to receive the locomotive "William Crooks"
These had 6,914,761 acres of improved and
10,864,254 acres of unimproved farm lands;
valued, with improvements, at more than
$150,000,000. Fifty years later these same
divisions, with the Dakotas, contained
108,216,831 acres of improved and 39,876,715
acres of unimproved farm land; valued, with
improvements, at $5,037,720,205. Kansas and
Nebraska by this time had added 43,473,145
acres of improved and 28,101,604 acres of unim-
proved farm land, valued at $1,221,312,790.
In Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon
there were 9,944,087 acres of improved and
23,675,895 acres of unimproved farm land,
valued at $352,291,497. The census of 1910
will show that even this rate of progress has
been surpassed during the last decade in the
far western states.
In these fifty years there were added three
times as many farms as had been opened in
the whole two hundred and fifty years from
the settlement of America. The addition to
AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH OF THE " WILLIAM CROOKS," THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE IN MINNESOTA
Brought up the Mississippi from La Crosse to St. Paul on a barge in 1861. It is now the Great Northern No. 1.
In 1908 it made a special trip and it is still serviceable zed by Vn
12344
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
PIONEER RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION
Miles of these wooden trestles have been filled in every year since their completion, and the work is still going on
acreage was 547,640,932 acres, or nearly twice as
much as all opened up before 1850. Of this
growth the twelve states constituting what is
most properly included under "The North-
west" had 235,509,262 acres, or very nearly
one-half of the total addition to farm area in
the United States, although all other parts of
the country had known marvelous growth.
They had about one-seventeenth of the entire
farm area in 1850 and about one- third in 1900.
Prior to 1850 over three-fourths of the total
value of farm land was found east and south
of the Ohio River. The value of farm property
per acre in that year was $13.51 for the whole
country, but in the Western States it was
only $1.86. In 1900 the average value per
acre for the country had risen to $24.39, and
of this increase the rich soils of the West
contributed the larger share. To-day it has
been still further increased. There is no
better measure of this growth, especially
for more recent years, than the following
MINNEAPOLIS IN 1857
In i860 its population was 2,564. In 1905 it was 261,974. The cross shows where the great Union. Station now stands
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THE "SELKIRK," ONE OF THE FIRST SLEEPING-CARS IN THE NORTHWEST
Doing service on a construction train in 1887
table, giving the total combined receipts of
grain, including wheat, corn, oats, and flour —
each barrel of flour being reckoned as four
and a half bushels of wheat — at four principal
Northwestern markets:
RECEIPTS OF GRAIN
Year Duluth Minneapolis Milwaukee Chicago
1887 . . 23,649,694 48,618,563 31,960,319 163,437,724
1007 . . 84,550,412 1 34,091 ,765 58,928,462 307,246,141
Fifty years ago, manufacturing in the
Northwest was only a name. Lumber and
flour were prepared and marketed and a
few hands were at work producing textiles
of coarse fabric. The entire value of home-
made manufactures in Illinois, Wisconsin, and
Iowa, the only portion of our Northwest
from which any manufacturing return what-
ever was made in the census of 1850, was
* OPENING THE FRONTIER
A track -laying gang and onlookers on the Minot-Helena
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12346
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
A WOODEN BRIDGE ON THE GREAT NORTHERN WHEN IT WAS FIRST BUILT
This type has been replaced by steel structures such as that shown in the lower picture
CONSTRUCTING A MODERN FIRE-PROOF STEEL TRESTLE
On the new " North Bank " road from Spokane to Portland, along the Columbia River
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12347
J LT*PM7iy.J ' 1111 YrTtTT1
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HOW THK NORTHERN PACIFIC CROSSES THE COLUMBIA NOW
$1,420,818. The shops and factories of the
state of Illinois1 alone turned out in 1905
manufactured goods valued at almost exactly
one thousand times that sum; three and a
third times as much for every working day
as the entire territory could show for its'
year's labor half a century ago. Facts like
these hammer home a sense of the magnitude
of the development of the Northwest and its
place in the progress not only of this nation
but of the world.
In 1850 the total valuation of real and
personal property combined in Illinois was
$156,265,006; it is now largely in excess of
a billion dollars. In the same year the
returned valuation of Iowa was $23,714,638 and
of Wisconsin $42,056,595. Minnesota, Kansas,
and Nebraska made no returns, their property
values being scattered and trifling. The real
and personal property of these six states and
territories, representing the genesis of the North-
west, amounted to no more than $222,036,239.
The latest assessment returns are incomplete
and far from dependable, but they show
property on the rolls of the six states to the
amount of $6,993,074,237; while the grand
total of this added to the valuations for the
other six commonwealths of the Northwest
westward to the Pacific is $8,632,430,230.
These tangible assets represent the growth, in
a little over half a century, of land and its
improvements, and that small fraction of other
property value which is included in the tax
lists.
The exchanges of the clearing-houses in
1908 at Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and
Minneapolis were nearly one-third of those
of the fifteen most important cities of the
country, excluding New York.
Immigration and industry have transformed
a wilderness in half a century into the home
of plenty. The single influence that has
contributed most to this astonishing work
is, of course, the rise and scientific develop-
THE OLD WAY — A PASSENGER TRAIN BEING FERRIED ACROSS THE
Digitized by
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12348
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
THE TUNNEL, SUCCESSOR TO THE SWITCHBACK
Bored at a cost of a million a mile to save the high operating cost of the
switchback. The Bozeman tunnel on the Northern Pacific
ment of the modern transportation system.
In the early 'fifties of the last century, the
railroad as a factor in national growth was
little considered and less understood. The
union by rail of the Great Lakes with the
Atlantic took place as late as 1850. Chicago
then contained less than 30,000 people, and
the whole crude development of the North-
west depended upon its waterways and upon
the prairie schooner. The engineers sent
out in 1852 to make the original surveys
for the Illinois Central across the prairies
found their camps frequently invaded by
wolves. The principal railroad lines in oper-
ation in the country were from New York to
Boston, from New York to Buffalo, Philadel-
phia, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh; from Detroit
headed toward Chicago, and from Cincinnati
to Sandusky.
In the decade between 1850 and i860 the
average charge for carrying one ton of freight
one mile was three cents or more. The
freight on a bushel of wheat from Chicago
to New York, utilizing lake and canal, was
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THE SWITCHBACK, THE FIRST METHOD OF CROSSING THE DIVIDE
Three locomotives to seven cars on the old Great Northern switchback, which was abandoned on the completion
of the Cascade tunnel. In the early days the Northern Pacific likewise had a switchback, to get its line over the
Cascade range
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12349
26.62 cents. There can be no contrast more
striking than that between the common
carriers of fifty years ago and those of to-day.
In 1850 there were a little over nine thousand
miles of railroad in the United States. A
few tracks had thrust themselves as far west
as the Mississippi; but beyond that, forest
and plain were uninvaded by the iron highway.
Twelve years later, in 1862, the whole railroad
system of Minnesota, the gateway to the
newer portion of the Northwest, was com-
prised in ten miles of track connecting
St. Paul and St. Anthony. The scanty products
of the country were shipped out by steamboat
and barge; and had that remained unchanged,
they would be scanty still. The railroad,
aiding incoming population and growing
industry, made* the Northwest and added its
immense resources to the wealth of the nation
and the natural capital of the world.
In 1857 Congress made a liberal grant of
lands to Minnesota to aid in the construction
of railways. The Territory transferred the
grant to a corporation; and after its admission,
THE THIRD STEP— ELECTRIFICATION
A smokeless, electrically drawn passenger train coming out of the east
portal of the Cascade tunnel on the Great Northern ;
HELPING A DOUBLE-HEADER OVER THE MOUNTAIN
On the heavy grades on both sides of the Cascade tunnel, the electric locomotives aid the regular engines, which shut
off steam in the tunnel to prevent smoke. The Great Northern is the first transcontinental railroad to electrify its
mountain division
12350
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
A PACIFIC COAST LUMBER MILL
Oregon, Washington, and Idaho cut more than $100,000,000 worth of lumber and shingles a year
the following year, the state loaned its credit ten miles of road already referred to were
to several other companies. They all de- completed by the St. Paul & Pacific, virtually
faulted, and it was not until 1862 that the a reorganization of one of the defunct concerns.
A STEEL GRAIN ELEVATOR AT SUPERIOR, WIS.
Which with its concrete annex will hold half again as much wheat as the crop of Wisconsin
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i235i
SEATTLE — A PACIFIC OCEAN GATEWAY
Made possible by the transcontinental railroads
This company was afterward divided, and
its two sections prosecuted railway construction
with varying fortunes until the financial collapse
of 1873 prostrated both. The properties were
heavily and repeatedly mortgaged; their credit
exhausted. Construction stopped; and with
it the development which the Northwest
had for a time enjoyed. Up to 1871 some
285 miles of track had been completed, reaching
the Red River at Breckenridge ; and by the
same date about five hundred miles of
the Northern Pacific had been constructed.
Now both enterprises stopped; and the North-
west grew only as settlement crept forward
over the prairies a few miles each year in the
wake of ox-teams.
In 1878 four associates, George Stephen,
now Lord Mountstephen ; Donald A. Smith,
now Lord Strathcona; Norman W. Kittson
and myself obtained control of the St. Paul &
Pacific's lines through purchase of its out-
standing securities. The volume of these
WHEAT AS IT LEAVES THE PACIFIC COAST FOR THE PORTS OF THE WORLD
The wheat that comes east is not put in sacks but transported in bulk
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I2352
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
A PIONEER OF COMMERCE
The " Idzumi Maru," one of the first Jananese trans-Pacific liners,
entering Seattle harbor in 1806
showed the large amount of money that had
been invested, wisely or unwisely, in the
original enterprises.
Their stock aggregated $6,500,000 and their
bonded indebtedness nearly $33,000,000, aside
from floating obligations. These were all
valid securities, had to be purchased in the
market, and as the faith of the associates in
the future of the Northwest was not shared
generally at that time by men with capital
to invest, they were obliged to pledge their
possessions and strain their credit to secure
the funds necessary, not only to complete this
purchase but to rush additional construction
of new lines that must be built to save the
land grant. The capitalization of the lines
purchased and built was approximately
$44,000,000, and the deal a large one for
those days.
In 1879 this property, then including 656
miles of railroad, was reorganized as the
St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway
Company. Since the common custom in
reorganizations is to increase the total volume
of indebtedness, it is worthy of mention, and
has not been without its bearing upon the
prosperous growth of the Northwest, that
the capitalization of the new company was
but $31,000,000; a scaling down of about
30 per cent. At first, dividends on the stock
WHERE THE GREAT NORTHERN TOUCHES THE PACIFIC
The Western terminal docks at Smith's Cove, near Seattle
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12353
were but 4 per cent.; which was less than the
interest on the money invested in the bonds.
The problem of the railroad now became
the problem of the Northwest. These great
fertile spaces were to be opened to settlement as
rapidly as capital could be amassed and energy
applied to the work of construction. And settle-
ment, thus stimulated, was continually, on its
part, pressing against transportation facilities
and demanding their enlargement. Connec-
tion was made with the Great Lakes by a line
to Duluth, branches of the main line were
pushed through the fertile lands of Minnesota
and Dakota, and in 1893 the transcontinental
system reached the Pacific Coast.
By that time the St. Paul, Minneapolis &
Manitoba had become the Great Northern;
and in 1907 all the subsidiary systems which,
for convenience or of necessity, had been
operated by the latter company, were con-
solidated with it into one system which Jiad
grown in 1908 to a tota^crf 6,74^ miles operated.
The addition of more than six thousand miles
of new construction during thirty years is a
fair measure of the growth of the Northwest,
of whose common carriers this system is but
one. One illustration will show what has hap-
pened to freight rates. When the railroad
property was taken over from the receivers, the
FROM DULUTH FOR BUFFALO
The steamer "Northwest" on the Great Lakes, where the American
merchant marine is a success
rate from St. Vincent to Duluth was 40 cents
per hundred; now it is 13.
The financing of such an enterprise is no
WHERE THE GREAT NORTHERN TOUCHES THE LAKES
The coal-docks at Duluth that supply the whole Northwest with fuel
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
"355
less vital than its construction and operation.
It began, as stated, with an issue of $31,000,000
of stock and bonds to represent property into
which the proceeds of the sale of $44,000,000
of securities had previously been put. Exten-
sions and the creation of great terminals
called for increased capitalization from time
to time. To a large extent betterments were
paid for out of current earnings, instead of by
struction and purchase, the total of its capital
stock and bohded debt had become, June
30, 1908, exclusive of the bonds of the Burling-
ton system guaranteed jointly by the Great
Northern and the Northern Pacific, which
the Burlington property amply secures and
whose fixed charges it pays, $307,918,689.
The growth of interest and confidence raised
the number of stockholders from 122 in 1892
AN OLD WOOD-CUT OF "THE SELKIRK"
This was Mr. Hill's first steamer; it was engaged in trade up the Red River frpm St. Paul
new stock or bond issues. Rolling stock was
provided in the same way; and the extent of
this drain upon resources appears from the
increase of 49 locomotives on the system
originally to 1,081 in 1908; of passenger cars
from 58 to 802; and of freight and work cars
from 761 to 43,890.
To provide funds for the more than 6,000
miles of track added to the system by con-
to 15,000 in 1908, with an average holding
of 140 shares, or $14,000 each. Between
1890 and 1908 these stockholders paid in
$160,000,000 in actual cash. This, in addi-
tion to the bond issues, represented the
vast sum that had to be raised on faith in the
property and the country, to keep the railroad
system abreast of development in the North-
west. In the seventeen years 1891-1907,
12356
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
DATE
1879
1883
1893
1903
1908
656 MILES ,
1 350.32 MTLES
4257.46 MILES
If U U U U'U U uu-u-u-u-
5887.80 MILES
671 6.O0 MILES
THE GROWTH OF THE GREAT NORTHERN SYSTEM
To ten times its original length in thirty years
all the surplus earnings of the system and
$1,366,728 additional were put back into the
property in additions and betterments.
The total outstanding stock and bonds per
mile of main track for the Great Northern
ST. PAUL AND PACIFIC
mi SUMMER THE TABLE. 1872.
860
400
MO
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MT. I* AIL « MTCHKIKLII THAIX.
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1806 I* V 1*0 -
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7.17 ■ *07 - •
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AN EARLY TIME TABLE
Showing that in 1872 the time between St. Paul and Breckenridge
was twenty minutes less than twelve hours. Now the Great Northern
fast-mail makes the run in six hours and forty minutes.
system amount to $45,031.77. Its terminal
facilities could not be duplicated for any
money. The small traffic of settlers and
frontier posts has grown to the carriage of
493,000,000 passengers and nearly six billion
tons of freight one mile in 1908. Precisely
as farm lands have increased from $2.50
an acre to $50 or $75, just as city lots now
sell for more per front foot than their former
whole value, sometimes more than the value
of the entire townsite thirty years ago, so the
value of railroad property has increased with
the growth of the country. One is as natural,
as just, and as deserved as the other. They
arrive in such connection that each is cause
and each effect of the other. But on the
mere basis of assessed valuations, the total
of railroad capitalization or valuation is very
small when compared with the total value
added to private property within the same
period. Both are of equal propriety and
validity, and are entitled to the same return.
During the same period the Northern
Pacific's transcontinental line was completed,
the system was built up and reorganized, the
Burlington extended into the Northwest, and
the Milwaukee & St. Paul, the Northwestern,
the Canadian Pacific, and other companies
contributed new mileage yearly to the facilities
of this section.
Nowhere else do comparative statistics show
more accurately the rapidity of growth. In
1870 the total railroad mileage of the United
States was 52,922 and in 1890 it had grown to
166,793. The increase in these twenty years
for the country was 215 per cent. But in those
same years the mileage in the states beginning
with Illinois on the East and extending to the
Pacific Coast, including Nebraska on the
south, increased 341 per cent. In the seven
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"357
GREAT NORTHERN
NORTHERN PACIFIC
YEAB
Average Train Load
in Tons
TEAR
Average Train Load
in Tons
1895
252.13
1887
1 2 1 .60
1898
316.29
1898
264.59
1908
609. 1 1
1908
430.87
THE HEAVY TONNAGE OF THE NORTHERN FREIGHTS
The Great Northern had the lowest grade over the mountains and
could therefore haul heavier trains
distinctively Northwestern states, Minnesota,
the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Washington
and Oregon, the increase was 1,181 per cent.
In 1907 these seven states had 27,161 miles
of railroad as against 16,863 miles in 1890;
and within their boundaries construction is
proceeding more rapidly than elsewhere.
While this labor of organization, of finan-
cing, of construction, of operation, and of
traffic building went forward, transportation
charges fell progressively until now the
Northwest has relatively — that is, taking
into account the newness of the country
and comparative density of population and
traffic — the lowest railroad rates in the
world.
This mutual benefit can continue only while
the products of fields and factories are carried
to the consumer on such terms as give its proper
profit to each party to the transaction; thus
encouraging the further increase of industry
by guaranteeing to each its reasonable share of
gain. The embodiment in practice of this
principle that railroading is a business enter-
prise and not a speculation; that its chief inter-
est is in the field, the factory and the mine
rather than upon the stock exchange; that the
intelligent and just system of profit-sharing
between carrier and shipper embodied in
reasonable rates will best promote the pros-
perity of both and enlarge the common
heritage, is not the least of the contributions
made by the Northwest to the development
of the nation and the world within the last
fifty years.
GREAT NORTHERN
NORTHERN PACIFIC
YEAB
Average Car Load
in Tons
YEAR
Average Car Load
in Tons
1895
13.16
1887
5.77
1898
14.75
1898
12.21
1908
20.49
1908
18.86
THE AVERAGE CAR-LOAD IN THE NORTHWEST
The Great Northern took pains to equalize the east and west-bound
traffic, and therefore hauled fewer empty cars
So much for the past of the Northwest. The
duty of its people now is to render secure its
development and progress. The causes of its
growth are to be found in the transfer of an
DATE
1879
1883
1893
1 523 CARS
4908 CARS
13431 CARS
1903
26545 CARS
1908
43890 CARS
THE INCREASE IN THE GREAT NORTHERN'S FREIGHT
EQUIPMENT
In 1908 there were twenty-eight times as many cars as in 1870, and
the cars were of much greater capacity
GREAT NORTHERN R. R.
YEAR
.Average Re venae
per Ton Mile
Total Hevenne
Collected
Revenue on Basis of the
Average Rate of 1881
Difference
1881
2.8 CENTS
$ 2,691.772.54
$ 2,691,772.54
$
1891
1.236
$ 9.439.006.77
$ 22.000.975.80
$ 12,561,969.03
1901
.871
$21,623,653.95
S 71.474.434.42
$ 49.850.780.47
1908
.7806
$40.3 1 1 .420. 1 4
$148,723,996.75
$108,412,576.61 '
THIRTY YEARS' DECLINE IN FREIGHT RATES
Showing the change in the average charge per ton per mile, and also what that charge means in dollars
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
1 2361
immense population, supplied by our own
natural increase and by immigration, to enor-
mous areas of fertile soil. It was like
opening the vaults of a treasury and bidding
each man help himself.
But these conditions cannot be permanent.
The present era is the crisis of the old order.
The primary business of the Northwest hitherto
has been the mastery of natural conditions.
Its next contribution should be to the econ-
omic and social evolution of the race. We
must determine upon a national economy quite
different from the present when our population
shall approach three times what it was in 1900.
Striking as the contrast has been found between
1850 and 1900, that between 1900 and 1950 will
reveal more serious features.
Practically speaking, our public lands are
about all occupied. Our other natural re-
sotirfces have been exploited with a lavish
hand. Our iron and coal supplies will show
signs of exhaustion before fifty years have
passed. The former, at the present rate of
increasing production, will be greatly reduced.
Our forests are going rapidly; our supply of
mineral oil flows to the ends of the earth. The
soil of the country is being impoverished by
careless treatment. In some of the richest
portions of the country its productivity has
deteriorated fully 50 per cent. These are
facts to which necessity will compel our atten-
tion before we have reached the middle of this
century. To a realization of our position,
and especially to a jealous care of our land
resources, both as to quantity and quality, to
a mode of cultivation that will at once
multiply the yield per acre and restore
instead of impairing fertility, we must come
without delay. There is no issue, in business
or in politics, that compares in importance or
in power with this.
The outlook for our future has been summed
up with rare accuracy and force by the late
Professor Shaler in these words:
"As the population becomes dense there will
soon appear the dangers of poverty and misery
that are apt to accompany a crowded civilization.
The enormous pressure of masses of people seems
to crush out the hope and. energy and prosperity
of a large proportion of them; and the great
problem of modern progress, after all, is how to
deal with this tendency — how to prevent the
forces of advancing social evolution from being
destructive as well as creative."
This is the problem of the nation, exactly
stated; and it is, in a special sense, the prob-
lem of the Northwest. As here the noblest
fruits of prosperity have been gathered, so here
must be evolved methods to preserve them from
decay. Leadership implies responsibility. It
is the central area of this continent that gave
the material and the stage for the latest phases
of human progress. It is there that the prob-
lems which have baffled older nations, the.
processes as yet unaccomplished, must be
worked out.
Nowhere else can be found more energy
or more courage to join with great issues.
The event will come not through mere boasting
or through the accretion of wealth and the
magnification of industries, but as all the works
of science and all the revelations of natural
law have been identified with our common life;
by infinite patience, infinite study of facts as
they are, infinite search for the right adaptation
of means to ends, infinite devotion to the glory
and perpetuity of our institutions and infinite
love for man as he should and yet may be.
[Mr. HilFs next article deals with one of the most interesting commercial questions of* our
time — Oriental Trade. Trade with Asia has played an important part in the commercial
life of every maritime nation of Europe — has, in great party made every one of them rich. Now
it is within our reach — this great prize of commerce. Mr. Hill explains how we started
to grasp it, and how we fell short because of the unbusiness-like nature of our governmental
rate-regulation. There is an ever-increasing volume of trade with Oriental countries which
some nation must get; for civilization brings in its wake demands both ways. Are we wise
enough to permit our merchants and our railroads to secure it? Mr. Hill narrates events
of his own experience and gives besides a world-wide view of the subject. — The Editors.]
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A SCHOOL WITH A CLEAR AIM
know that the work of men in this miracle
of centuries has a higher interest than wast-
ing pleasure; and from these realities of
living men and living work they frame their
own image of the world.
Into this small democratic state of rich and
poor, there streams the outside world with
its help. The school welcomes little selected
immigrants, even an Igorrote lad. Thus, all
the boys get some true notion of the actual
life of other lands, some mutual understanding
of national merits and faults. Business men,
manufacturers, travellers, authors, and musir
cians visit the school and talk familiarly in the
homelike evenings. Parents come for the
week-end, or perhaps for days.
For the late afternoon and holidays, there
are games of the honored " teams,' ' and the
rival labors of their candidates. There is
tramping, bicycling, or the building of a giant
"shack," with a towered lookout, according
to laboriously corrected "carpenter's specifica-
tions." The master says that the boys "have
a right to all the fun they want, provided they
faithfully do their listed work."
All this means rigorous living in plenty.
But it is natural, outdoor living, normal primi-
tive life — work and play in the sun and wind
and rain, the hand in the soil. And the boys,
many of them puny lads when they first come,
get the vigor of the original savage. In the
two full years since the school's beginning
at Interlaken, not a boy has had serious
sickness. There has not been a single case of
any infectious disease, nor any illness whatever
except an occasional cold and sore throat —
and these mosdy confined to newcomers.
A SCHOOL WITHOUT "DONT's"
Freedom is the heart of the life, and each
boy, as a gentleman, has precious rights of
self-government. Authority is not hated for
its "dont's." As a solitary prohibition, stu-
dents are forbidden to go swimming except in
the company of a teacher. There are no
bounds: permission is always given to go to
town. There is not even a law against smoking
— yet the boys do not smoke. A newcomer,
unmolested, may puff his pipe or cigarette
within his own room as long as he can hold out
against public opinion; but public opinion is
strong, and the will of a single boy is usually
too weak for the contest.
A master's word is often the governing thing;
but in this trustful, informal democracy, dis-
cipline rests almost wholly on the boys them-
selves, developing their judgment, decision,
and character, First, there are the older boys,
who become unofficial prefects — the mainstay
of the school in leadership and morals. To
them an appeal of reason is never made in
vain. One of them ended hazing. They have
their occasional share of teaching; they take
charge of bicycle rides, and so far command
the respect of the small lads that now and
again a worshipping "mister" is heard. And
there are the natural captains of juniors,
conspicuous leaders. In the first days of the
school it was a ten-year-old boy who put
a stop to the tobacco habit.
It was not a teacher who once suggested
that a full boy's court be summoned — for the
jury trial of the only case of cruelty to animals.
After an eager deliberation the verdict "guilty"
was announced, and the sullen defendant was
sternly sentenced to spend Wednesday's half-
holiday reading the Humanitarian Society's
"Black Beauty."
An ink-ball once went hurtling across the
history room and spattered on the window.
"Did you throw that?" quietly asked the
teacher of Sprinter, the new boy.
"No, sir."
"Yes, you did, Sprinter!" cried McNeal.
"Yes, you did!" prompdy echoed another
boy.
"Prof, won't stand for a lie!" was the
warning notice of a third.
"We won't stand for a lie!" came the law
from McNeal.
At Interlaken, there is more than religious
tolerance. There is a hearty welcome for all
creeds. In his study, from time to time, the
master reads the Scriptures to such as wish to
hear him. Religion is honored in the unargued
feeling that it is well for every man to have a
staunch faith of his own.
The school holds as sacred the character,
opinions, and native bent of a boy. It seeks to
give him health of body and skill of hand, to
develop the highest individual qualities of his .
heart and mind, perfecting him in the unity of
manhood. It is willing to let him be the
architect of his own life. It insists only that
he shall clearly see the facts of life.
A DREAMER RECALLED TO LIFE
One day a dreamer of seventeen entered the
school — a Socialist and the son of a Socialist,
flaming for his cause with the ardor of an
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apostle. At the end of a week, the master
took him for a walk. It was a quick tramp
about town for a business hour, with just an
earnest word of counsel at the end, riveting
friendship:
"You must train your brain to keenness.
Touch the bedrock of practical things. Under-
stand thoroughly the problems you wish to
attack."
The dreamer was put to work in the office,
filing letters and checking bills.
Dr. Rumely has taken up his work to obtain
definite results of success, and his first efforts
are now victories. The school is crowded
with boys; and, within two years of its
beginning, it has a waiting list. Its students
are chiefly the sons of successful business
men who came to Interlaken to investigate.
They saw boys actually learning through
life and work how to live, and learning with
great thoroughness the old «-sse;i!:.iN. And
for an average, only one in twenty of the
investigators failed to entrust his -on »n the
new school. Success in number ] ^ thus
been immediate, and by simp. « |i><; ment
and simple living the imp<^ an ]•• ctical
end is won. At modest c -:. h chool
pays its own way; and in business foohion,
it pays a due profit of interest — the one
necessary thing.
Plans are maturing which will probably
give Interlaken a New England branch
within a year. The president of one of the
largest educational institutions of the West,
reading the first written account of the work,
at once sent word:
" I want our Academy reorganized upon the
model of Interlaken."
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
VI
THE BATTERED HULKS OF THE BOWERY
BY
ALEXANDER IRVINE
THE Bowery is one of the unique
thoroughfares of the world. On its
sidewalks there is a greater mingling
of the nations than in any street that I have
ever seen. The story of the cheap lodging-
houses to which I was commissioned to carry
the gospel is one of the most interesting chap-
ters of the Bowery's history.
There were sixty to seventy of them on the
Bowery when I began my work. These I
visited every day of the week. There was a
glamor, a fascination, about it in the night-
time that held me in its grip as tightly as it
did others. Most of the faces were pale and
haggard; many of them were painted. How
sickly they looked under the white glare of the
arc lights that fizzed and sputtered overhead!
My headquarters at first was the City
Mission Church on Broome Street, called
"The Broome Street Tabernacle," and to it
I led thousands of weary feet. The minister
at that time, the Rev. Mr. Tyndall, was a
splendid man with a modern mind; but I
filed his tabernacle so full of the "Weary
Willies of the Bowery" that he revolted; and
as I look back at the circumstance now, he
was fully justified. Mr. Tyndall was doing
a more important work than I was, more
fundamental and far-reaching. He was touch-
ing the family life of the community, and he
saw what I did not see: that our congregations
could riot be mixed — that my work was
spoiling his. I did not see it then; I see it
now. So I betook myself to another church,
and this other church got a credit which it did
not deserve, for it had no family life to touch.
It was at Chatham Square, and its usefulness
consisted in the fact that it was situated where
it could catch the ebb and flow of the "tramp-
tide."
I spent my afternoons in the lodging-houses,
pocket Bible in hand, going from man to man,
as they sat there, workless, homeless, dejected
and in despair. I very soon found that there
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was one gbspel they were looking for and willing
to accept j— the gospel of work; so, in order
to meet the emergency, I became an employ-
ment agdncy. I became more than that
They needed clothing and food — and I
became A junk store and soup kitchen.
Everything I could beg or borrow went into
the work.
At the close of the first year, the results
were rathfer discouraging. I got jobs for a
number of men, but very few "made good."
Hundreds of men had been clothed, fed, and
lodged, but they had passed out of my reach.
I knew not where they had gone. Scarcely
one in a hundred ever let me know by a postal-
card what had become of him — and yet my
work was called successful.
It seemd strange to me now that, after
having traihped the streets of New York with
the unemployed and after having shared their
wretchedness, I should then have entirely
forgotten it; and that after years of experience
among them, I should still be possessed of
the idea that men of this grade were lazy and
would not work if they had the chance. One
afternoon in a bunk-house, I was so possessed
of this idea that I challenged the crowd.
"You men surely do not need any further
evidence of my interest in you," I remarked.
"All that I have and am belongs to you; but
I cannot help telling you of my conviction,
that most of you are here because you are lazy.
Now, if any man in the house is willing to
test the case, I will change clothes with him
to-morrow morning and show him how to
find work."
The words had scarcely escaped my lips
when a man by the name of Tim Grogan
stood up and accepted the challenge.
I made an appointment to meet Grogan on
Chatham Square at half-past five the next
morning. Before I met him, I had done more
thinking on the question of the unemployed
than I had ever done in my life. I balked
on the change of clothing, and furnished my
own. Two or three men had enough courage
to get up early in the morning and see Tim
off; they were skeptical about my intention.
The first thing that we did was to try the
piano, soap, and other factories on the West
Side. From place to place we went, from
Fourteenth to Fifty-ninth Street, without suc-
cess. Sometimes, under pretense of business
and by force of power to express myself in
good English, I gained an entrance to the
superintendent; but I always failed to find a
job. We crossed the city at Fifty-ninth Street
and went down the East Side. Wherever men
were working, we applied. We went to the
stevedores on the East Side, but they were
all "full up." "For God's sake," I said to
some of them, but I was brushed aside with a
wave of the hand. I never felt so like a beggar
in my life. Tim trotted at my heels, encourag-
ing me with whimsical Irish phrases, one of
which I remember:
" Begorra, mister, the hardest work, for sure,
is no work at all — at all!"
In the middle of the afternoon, I began to
get disturbed; then I decided to try a scheme
that I had worked over for hours. "Keep
close to me now, Tim," I said, as I led him
to a drugstore at the corner of Grand Street
and the Bowery.
"Sir," I said to the clerk, "you are unaccus-
tomed to giving credit, I know; but perhaps
you might suspend your rule for once and trust
us to the amount of five cents."
"You don't talk like a bum," he said, "but
you look like one."
I thanked him for the compliment to my
language, but insisted on my request.
"Well, what is it?" asked the clerk with
somewhat of a sneer.
"I am hungry and thirsty. I have looked
for work all day and have utterly failed to find
it. Now I have a scheme and I know it will
work. Oxalic acid eats away rust. If I had
five cents' worth, I could earn a dollar — I
know'I could."
He looked curiously at me for a moment,
and said with an oath:
"I've been on the Bowery a good many
years and haven't been 'sold' once. If you're
a skin-game man, I'll throw up my job!"
I got the acid. I played the same game in
a tailor-shop for five cents' worth of rags.
Then I went to a hardware store on the Square
and got credit for about ten cents' worth of
brick-dust and paste. I took Tim by the arm
and led him across Chatham Square. There
used to be a big drygoods store on the east
side, with large plate- glass windows, and
underneath the windows were big brass signs.
"Nothing doing," said the floorwalker, as
I asked for the job of cleaning them; never-
theless, when he turned his back, I dropped
on my knees and cleaned a square foot — did
it inside of a minute.
"Say, boss," I said, "look here! I'm des-
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perately hard up. I want to make money,
and I want to make it honestly. I will clean
that entire sign for a nickel."
It was pity that moved him to give me the
job, and when it was completed I offered to
do the other one. "All right," he said; "go
ahead."
"But this one," I said, "will cost you a
dime."
"Why a nickel for that one and a dime for
the other?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "we are just entering busi-
ness. In the first case I charged you merely
for the work done; in the second, I charge
you for the idea."
"What idea?" he inquired.
"The idea that cleanliness is part of any
business man's capital."
"Well, go ahead."
When both signs were polished, I offered
to clean the big plate-glass windows for ten
cents each. This was thirty cents below the
regular price, and I was permitted to do the job.
Tim, of course, took his coat off, rolled his
shirt-sleeves up, and worked, with a will beside
me. After that, we swept the sidewalk, earn-
ing the total sum of thirty-five cents. We
tried other stores, but the nationality of most
of them was against us; nevertheless, in the
course of the afternoon, we made a dollar and
a half. Then I took Tim to "Beefsteak
John's," and we had dinner. Then I began
to boast of the performance and warn Tim
that on the following Sunday afternoon I should
explain my success to the men in the bunk-
house.
"Yes, yes, indeed, yer honor," said Tim,
"y'er a janyus! There's no doubt about that
at all — at all! But "
"Go on," I said.
"I was jist swi therm'," said Tim, "what a
wontherful thing ut is that a man kin always
hev worruk whin he invints ut."
"Well, that's worth knowing, Tim," I said,
disappointedly. "Did you learn anything
else?"
" There's jist one thing that you forgot, yer
honer."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Begorra, you forgot that if all the brains
in the bunk-house wor put together, they
cudn't think of a thrick like that — the thrick
of cleaning a window wid stuff from a dhrug-
store ! They ain't got brains."
"Why haven't they?"
"Och, begorra, I dunno. except for the sarne
raisin that a fish hasn't no horns!"
We retraced our steps to the drugstore and
the tailor-shop and the hardn-arc store,
£aid our bills, and I handed ov: r whnt was
jfttoTim.
Among the interesting characters :hrJ I
came into contact with n those days was
Dave Ranney. I was go! g across Chatham
Square one night, when *' 's man tappeo me
on the shoulder — "tpucl .1 mc" he would
call it He was "a pudd r from Phtshurg,"
he said.
" Show me your hands,' I replied. I ^ ttad,
he stuck them deep intc h's potU-ts, and I
told him to try again He s ■ d he was
hungry, so I took him * a restaurant; bjx*-'
he couldn't eat. He vi.nted a drink, but
I wouldn't give that to him. He walked
the streets that night, t . he came to me
later and I helped him and every time he
came he got a little : arer the truth in
telling his story. Finall I <r)t it all. He
squared himself and be| in the fight of his
life; he is now himself . missionary to the
Bowery lodging-houses.
Another convert of the bunk-house was
Edward Dowling. " Der's :» i old gazabc here,
said " the bouncer" to me or.t da/, " and ae's
got de angel goods on him O. K.''
He was a quiet, reticent old man of nxty,
an Irishman who had served in the Urilish
Army in India with Havelock and Colin Camp-
bell. He had bought a ranch in die West,
but an accident to one c *" his cycs> forced him
to spend all his money ■•-• save the other one.
He drifted into New Vork i»omel'"~= ind
penniless; seeing a tinker mending umbrc lias
one day on the street, ho sat down besMe .rim
and watched the proc: *. In tiat wy he
learned something of the irad*-.
One Sunday afternoon when 1 v;r rallying
a congregation in the bv'ik-house, I oun-i ■ im
on his cot, reading the lire of Butf.uo Bill. I
invited him down to :he meeting, but he
politely refused, saying that he wa* an Ep :o-
palian. The following Sui. ^y he «.id >\ :ne,
and his was the most striking -;>.ritu?! c "isis
that I had ever seer. His t ■ •« ersion was
clean-cut, definite, and r'car; v is of . "ind
with the conversion oi Paul < • the w: k to
Damascus. He was anc:/i ■'. t\W \r*u :> ;ent
man, and could repeat mc: c — r :>•••• n/v by
heart than any man I have ever known. He
came out from the mass of that human
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flotsam and jetsam on the Sunday afternoon
following his conversion, and told them what
had happened to him.
The lodgers were very much impressed. It
was in the winter time. The old man began
his work at once, for he would starve rather
than beg. The "bouncer" told me that the
old tinker would buy a stale loaf for a few
cents; then, in the dormitory, he would make
coffee in tomato-cans and gather half-a-dozen
of the hungriest around him, and share his meal
with them — ptyin bread soaked in unsweet-
ened coffee. Sometimes he would read a few
verses of the Bible to them, and sometimes
merely say in hi$ clear Irish voice: "There
now, God.blissye!"
At this time he was living on a dollar a week,
but every morning he had his little tea party
around the old stove, his cheery greeting, and
his final word of benediction to the men he
had selected to share in his bounty, as they
slunk out of the bunk-house to begin the day.
Later, he h^d a large-type New Testament
out of which he read a verse or two every
morning at the meal. Very soon the three
hundred lodgers began to look upon him with
a kind of awe. This was not because he had
undergone a radical change —for he had always
been quiet, gentle, and civil — but because
he had found his voice; and that voice was
bringing to them something they could not
get elsewhere — sympathy, cheer, and courage.
Going down Mulberry Street one morning
in the depth of winter, I happened to glance
up one of the. narrow alleys in " the Bend,"
and I noticed my friend standing at a window,
his face close to a broken pane of glass, and
his large New Testament held a few inches
from his face. His tinker's budget was by
his feet. The door was closed. In a few
minutes he closed the book and put it into his
kit; and as he moved away from the window,
I saw a large bundle of rags pushed into the
hole.
"What have you been doing?" I inquired.
He laughed. "There, now, God bliss her!"
he said. " I put a rib in an umbrella for her,
but she said the house was too dirty to read
the Bjble in, so she let me read it through the
broken window."
All that winter he tinkered and taught. All
winter, the little ragged audiences gathered
around him in the morning; and often at even-
time, when he retreated into a quiet corner
to be silent and rest, he found himself the
centre of an inquiring group of his fellow-
lodgers.
His diary of that period is before me as I
write, and I am astonished at the great humility
of this simple-minded man.
He had been asked by the minister of his
church to call; but his modesty prevented him
until hunger forced him to change his mind.
After starving for three days, he made up his
mind to accept that invitation, and reveal his
condition to the well-to-do minister of this well-
to-do church. He was poorly clad. It was
a very cold winter day. The streets were
covered with slush and snow. On his way he
met an old woman with a shawl around her,
a bedraggled dress, and wet feet.
"My good woman," said Dowling, "you
must be very cold, indeed, in this condition."
"Sir," she answered, "I am cold; but I
am also starving of hunger. Could you afford
me one cent to get some bread ?"
"God bless ye, dear friend!" he said, "I
have not been able to taste food for three days
myself; but I am now on the way to the house
of a good friend — a good servant of the Lord;
and if I get any help, I will share it with you.
I am a poor tinker, but work has been very
slack this last week. I have not earned enough
to pay for my lodging."
The diary gives all the details: the corner
of the street where he met her, the hour of the
day.
A servant ushered him into the parlor of his
"good friend, the servant of the Lord."
Presently the reverend doctor came down,
somewhat irritated; instead of shaking hands
with the old man, he said :
" Dowling, I know I have asked you several
times to call, but I am a very busy man and
you should have let me know. I simply cannot
see you this morning. I have an address to
prepare for the opening of a mission and I
haven't the time."
"No handshake — no Christian greeting,"
records the tinker's diary; and the account
closes with these words: "Dear Lord, do not
let the demon of uncharitableness enter into
my poor heart!"
He became a colporter for a tract society,
and was given as territory the towns on the
east side of the Hudson River. Tract selling
in this generation is probably the most thankless,
profitless work that any human being could
undertake. The poor old man was burdened
with a heavy bundle of the worst literary
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trash of a religious kind ever put out by a pub-
lishing house. He was to get 25 per
cent, of the sales; so he shouldered his kit,
with his heart full of enthusiasm, and began
the summer journey on foot. He carried his
diary with him, and although the entries are
very brief, they are to the point
"August 29. Sold nothing. No money for
bread or lodging. God is good. Night came and
I was so tired and hungry. I went into a grove
and, with a prayer of confidence on my lips, I went
to sleep. A clock not far away struck two. Then,
rain fell in torrents and a fierce wind blew. The
elements drove me from the grove.
" A constable held me up.
" 'I am a servant of God, dear friend,' I said.
" 'Why doesn't he give you a place to sleep,
then?' he answered.
" 'God forgive me,' thinks I to myself, 'but
that is the same unworthy thought that was in
my own mind.'
"I went into a building in course of erection
and laid down on some planks; but I was too wet
to sleep."
The next day, hunger drove him to work
early. He was turned from one door after
another, by saints and sinners alike, until
finally he was so weak with hunger that he
could scarcely walk. Then he became desper-
ate, to a degree, and his diary records a call
on another reverend doctor.
This eminent divine had no need for relig-
ious literature, nor had he time to be bothered
with beggars. Dowling records in his diary
that he told the minister that he was dropping
off his feet with hunger, and would be thankful
for a little bread and a glass of water. It
seems almost incredible that in a Christian
community such things could happen; but
the diary records the indictment that those
tender lips in life were never allowed to utter —
it records how he was driven from the door.
He had letters of introduction from this
rich tract society, and again he presented
them to a minister.
"A very nice lady came," says the record. "I
gave my credentials, explained my condition and
implored help.
" lWe are retired from the active ministry ,' the
woman said, 'and cannot help you. We have
no further use for religious books.' "
A third minister atoned for the others, and
made a purchase. This was at Tarrytown.
On another occasion, when his vitality had
ebbed low through hunger and exposure, he
was sitting on the roadside when a laborer said,
"There is a nigger down the road here who
keeps a saloon. He hasn't got no religion,
but he wants some. Ye'd better look him up."
And he did. The Negro saloon-keeper informed
him that, being a saloon-keeper, he and his
family were shut out from the church.
"Now," he said, "I am going to get Jim,
my barkeeper, to look after my joint while I
take you home to talk to me and my family
about God." So they entertained the tinker-
preacher, and the diary is full of praise to God
for his new-found friends. The Negro bought
a dollar's worth of tracts, and persuaded the
colporter to spend the night with them.
With this dollar he returned to New York, got
his tinker's budget, and went back to his
missionary field. If people did not want their
souls cured he knew they must have lots of
tinware that needed mending; so he combined
the work of curing souls with the mending of
umbrellas and kitchen utensils, and his period
of starvation was past. His business was to
preach the new vision and tinker for a living
as he went along.
"September 12," reads the diary, "I found
myself by the brook which runs east of the moun-
tain. I had a loaf of bread and some cheese;
and, with a tin cup, I helped myself to the water
of the brook. The fragments that remained I
put in a bundle and tied to the branch of a tree
by the roadside. On the wrapper I penciled these
words: 'Friend — if you come across this food
and you need it, do not hesitate to eat it; but if
you don't need it, leave it, for I will return at the
close of the day. God bless you!' "
At eventime he returned and was surprised
at the altered shape of the bundle. He found
two beef sandwiches and two big apples had
been added, with this jiote : " Friend — accept
these by way of variety. Peace to thee!"
A FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE
A sharp contrast was a statesman under a
cloud. I was sitting on a bench near the bunk-
house one day at twilight, when I noticed a
profile silhouetted against the window. I had
seen only one profile like that in my life, and
that was when I was a boy. I moved closer.
The man sat like a statue. His face was
very pale and he was gazing vacantly at the
walls in the rear of the building. Finally,
I went over and sat down beside him. "Good
evening," he said quietly, in answer to my
salutation, I looked into his face — a face I
knew when a boy, a face familiar to the law-
Digitized by V^OOQlC
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
makers of Victoria for a quarter of a century, doing here?" He looked at me with an
I called him by name. At the sound of his own expression of excruciating pain on his face,
name, his paleness turned to an ashy yellow. and said:
"In heaven's name," I said, "what are you "I have traveled some thousands of miles
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A PATHETIC PAGE FROM DOWLING'S DIARY
A record of how the sweet-spirited missionary-tinker was received by three clergyman
Digitized by VjOOQlC
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
12371
Photograph by Brown Bros., N. Y.
HOMELESS AND PENNILESS IN NEW YORK
Hundreds of men and boys sleep on the park benches every night until the winter drives them elsewhere
Photograph by Brown Bros., N. Y.
THE MIDNIGHT "BREAD-LINE" ON THE BOWERY
There are two places in New York — the Bowery Mission and Fleischmann's bakery — where about 2,000 loaves of
bread and 2,000 cups of coffee are distributed free every midnight
Digitized by
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12372
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
in order to be alone; if you have any kindness,
any pity, leave me."
"Pardon me," I said, "for intruding."
I had known this man as a brilliant orator,
a religious leader, the champion of a sect. In
a city across the sea, I had sat as a bare-legged
boy on an upturned barrel, part of an immense
crowd, listening to the flow of his oratory. . The
next day he left the bunk-house. Some Weeks
afterward I found him on a curbstone, preach-
ing to any of the pedestrians that would listen.
My advice was ready. He turned pale as
I told him to pack his trunk and take the
next ship for England.
"Face the storm like a man!" I urged.
" It will kill me, but I will do it," he said.
He did it, and it swept him to prison, to
shame, and to oblivion.
"DOC" CALAHAN, OF YALE
The only friend of those bunk-house days
now living is Thomas J. Callahan. Many
Photograph by Brown Bros. N. Y.
TYPES OF BOWERY "TOUGHS"
At the close of his address, I introduced
myself again. He took me to his new lodging,
and I put the questions that filled my mind.
For answer he gave me the House of Commons
Blue Book, which explained the charge hanging
over him. Almost daily, for weeks, I heard
him on his knees proclaim his innocence of
the unmentionable crime with which he was
charged. After some weeks of daily associa-
tion, he said to me :
"I believe you are sent of God to guide
me, and I am prepared to take your advice."
Yale men will never forget how "Doc" cared
for Dwight Hall. The circumstances under
which I met Doc were rather peculiar.
"Say, bub," said Gar, the "bouncer," to
me one day, "what ungodly hour of the
mornm' d'ye git up?"
"At the godly hour of necessity," I replied.
" Wal, I hev a pal I want ter interjooce to
ye at six."
I met the "bouncer" and his "pal" at the
corner of Broome Street and the Bowery next
morning at the appointed hour.
Digitized by
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Copyright, 1907, by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
A GROUP OF BOWERY SCHOOLBOYS
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12374
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
•4MY REST A STONE"
The man lying in front is Mr. Irvine
"Dat's Doc!" said Gar, as he placed his
hand on his friend's head.
His friend bowed low, and in faultless Eng-
lish,said : "I am more than pleased to meet you."
"Lean give you a pointer on Doc," the big
fellow continued. "If ye tuk a peaner to th'
NEARING THE END
The dying man who mixed " Little Brown Jug " with a hymn
top av a mountain an' let her go down the
side sorter ez she pleases, 'e cVd pick up the
remains an' put thim together so's ye wVdn't
know they'd been apart. Yes, sir; that's no
song an' dance, an' *e cVd play any chune
iver invented on it."
A TENEMENT SCENE IN NEW YORK'S EAST SIDE
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1^375
Doc laughed and made some explanations.
They had a wheezy old organ in Halloran's
dive, and Doc kept it in repair and played
occasionally for them. He had a Rip Van
Winkle look. His hair hung down his back,
and his clothes were threadbare and green
with age. His shoes were tied to his feet with
wire, and stockings he had none.
Doc had slipped a cog and gone down,
down, down, until he landed at Halloran's
dive. For twelve years he had been selling
penny song-sheets on the streets and in saloons.
He was usually in rags, but a score of the wild-
est inhabitants of that dive told me that Doc
was their "good angel." He could play the
songs of their childhood, he was kind and
gentle, and men couldn't be vulgar in his
presence.
I saw in Doc an unusual man, and was able
to persuade him to go home with me. In a
week he was a new man, clothed and in his
right mind. He became librarian of a big
church library, and our volunteer organist
at all the Sunday meetings.
After two years of uninterrupted service as
librarian, during which time Doc had been of
great service in the bunk-house, I lost him.
Five years later, crossing Brooklyn Bridge on
a car, I passed Doc, who was walking in the
same direction. At the end of the bridge I
planted myself in front of him. "Doc," I
said, " you will never get away from me again."
I took him to New Haven, where he is now
the janitor of Yale Hall.
I touched the life of the wretched com-
munity at every angle, sometimes entering as
a fool where an angel would fear to tread. One
day I was called upon to visit a poor couple
who lived in a rear tenement. I saw that the
old man was dying. He was scarcely able to
speak, but managed to express a desire that I
sing to him; so, as there was no one present
but his wife and myself to hear it, I sang.
This inspired the old man to sing himself.
He coughed violently, tried to clear his throat,
pulled himself together, and sang after me a
line of " Jesus, Lover of My Soul." This was
very touching, but the solemnity was severely
jarred by following that line with the first line
of: "Little Brown Jug, Don't' I Love You!"
So, between the "Little Brown Jug" and the
sacred poetry of the church, he wound up,
dying with his head on my. knee.
There was an insurance of $30 on his life.
I informed the undertaker, and did whatever
Copyright, 1907, by Umlorwood & Underwood. N. Y.
A FIGHT IN "MULBERRY BEND"
I could to comfort the old woman, who was
now entirely alone in the world. When I
arrived the next afternoon to conduct the
funeral service, there was a little crowd of
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
THE ITALIAN QUARTER, "MULBERRY BENT
Digitized by V300 W IC
12376
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
DOWLING, TINKER AND COLPORTER
A veteran who served in India under Havelock and Colin Campbell
people around the door, and from the inside
came agonized sounds from the old woman.
Without knocking, I opened the door. I
found the undertaker in the act of taking
the body out of the casket and laying it on the
lounge in the corner. The old woman was on
her knees, wringing her hands and begging
him in the name of God not to do it. I
asked for an explanation; rather reluctantly,
the undertaker told me (proceeding with his
programme as he explained) that there was
a "kink" in the insurance.
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THE CHURCH OF SEA AND LAND
One of Mr. Irvine's headquarters
"THE BISMARCK," A BOWERY BUNK-HOUSE
"Well," I said, "we can fix that up all
right."
"Yes," he said, "you can fix it up with cash;
we are not in business for our health, you
know."
"Well, stop for a moment," I pleaded, "and
let us talk it over."
"Have you got the dough?" he asked.
"Not here," I replied, "but I am the pastor
of that church up there on the corner, and
surely we are good enough for the small
expense of this funeral."
By this time he had the lid on the casket
and was proceeding to carry it out of the door.
The old woman was almost in hysterics. I
was mightily moved by the situation, and
asked the man to wait; but he jabbed the end
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12377
of the casket under my arm — perhaps acci-
dentally — pushing me to one side on his way
to tho, door. I was there ahead of him, how-
ever; I locked the door and put the key in my
pocket.
"Now, will you wait just for one moment
till we talk it over?"
His answer was a volley of oaths. I waited
until he subsided, and then I said:
"I will be responsible for this financially.
You are wringing the heart's blood out of this
poor old woman, and I don't propose to stand
by and allow it. I will give you two minutes to
put that body back in the casket and arrange
casket, and arranged it for burial. Then I put
on my coat, opened the door, and the crowd
came in. I read the service and preached the
sermon, and the undertaker did the rest.
Some months afterward, I was at work in
my study in the tower of the old Church of
Sea and Land, when I heard a loud knocking
at the church door — a most unusual thing.
I came down and found that undertaker and
a gentleman and lady, evidently of the well-
to-do class, standing at the door.
" Here is a couple that wants to get married,
Mr. Irvine," the undertaker said.
They came into the study and were married.
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A "BISMARCK" INTERIOR
Since odors cannot be photographed, it is not so good as it looks
it for burial, and if you don't do it, there may
be two to bury instead of one!"
I began to time him, making absolutely no
answer to anything that he said. I stood close
to the old woman and put my hand on her head.
"It's all right, Mary," I said. "Everything
is all right. You are not friendless. You are
not alone."
The two minutes were up. I took off my
coat, rolled up my shirt sleeves, and advanced
toward him.
"Are you going to do the decent thing?"
There was one long look between us. Then
he dropped his eyes, put the body back in the
The next day I went to the undertaker and laid
down a five-dollar bill on his desk, one-fourth
of the marriage fee. Without being invited,
I pulled a chair up and sat down beside him.
"Now tell me, brother," I said confiden-
tially, "how did you come to bring them to
me?"
A genuine smile overspread his features.
"Well," he said, "it was like this. You
remember that funeral business ?"
"Yes."
"Well, I figured it out like this: that one
of the two of us was putting up a damned big
bluff; but I hadn't the heart to call it Shake I "
Digitized byV^OU<7LC
MR. FRANCIS D. MILLET
An American painter who has received medals on the battlefield as well as at art exhibitions
Digitized by VjOOv VC
"THE NORSE DISCOVERERS"
Who are thought to have visited Massachusetts Bay in the year 1,000
A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
THE WORK OF FRANCIS D. MILLET, AN ARTIST WHO FINDS
HIS CHIEF INSPIRATION IN THE LIFE OF HIS OWN LAND
BY
LEILA MECHLIN
(with twelve photographs of mr. millet's paintings)
A MERIC A has recently been declared to
l\ be "an artistically undiscovered
A. JL country," because so few American
artists have turned for inspiration to their
own land. Especially does this apply to monu-
mental work such as mural paintings for public
buildings, wherein opportunity is peculiarly
well afforded for the recording of great events
in the life of the nation and its people. The
fault, however, cannot be laid entirely at the
door of the artists. There has been a demand
for things foreign not confined to wearing ap-
parel; imported ideas, as well as gloves and
fabrics, have been more readily marketable
than those of "home manufacture," and alle-
gory in classic guise alone has satisfied the
ideals of building committees. But a change
in attitude, both of the painters and their
patrons, is now observable, and exceptions to
" the rule may be noted.
The decorations by Mr. F, D. Millet in the
new Cleveland Trust Company Building
are an exception. They consist of a series of
thirteen panels, each approximately sixteen
by five feet, illustrating the settlement of the
state of Ohio, but typifying the pioneer move-
ment which resulted in the opening up of
the great West. The first of the series goes
back to the discovery of America; the second,
to the Puritan settlers who first gained a foot-
"THK PURITANS PREACHING THE GOSPEL"
" Being ye last day of ye week, they prepared there to keep ye Sabbath "
12380
A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
"LA SALLE ON LAKE ERIE"
" One of the bravest and most sagacious explorers that ever lived "
hold in the new land; then come pictorial
interpretations of exploration both by water
and land, migration, barter, and the conquest
of the soil. Some of the panels have local
significance, such, for example, as "Surveying
the Site of Cleveland," but the majority have
broader significance. There was something
fine in the courage, the hardihood, the self-
assurance of the early settlers who pushed
their way westward, farther and farther, until
the last barrier was passed, and this it is that
Mr. Millet has given expression to in his
paintings. In composition they are very sim-
ple, and in effect frank. If they appeal to the
imagination, it is not because they are vague,
but on account of their ability to vividly recall
the past. The utmost care was taken to pre-
sent correct types; but, beyond this, historical
accuracy was not thought essential, it being
the spirit and not the letter which animated
the transcription.
In the great rotunda used as a banking room,
and therefore accessible to the public, these
panels form a frieze, terminating the wall
forty feet above the floor level, and behind a
colonnade supporting the dome. Because of
this elevated and recessed position, it was
essential that the paintings should be strong
in color and positive in treatment. Deep
blues and greens predominate, enlivened by
touches of brilliant red — as, for instance, the
blanket of an Indian or the oxen's yoke —
and the pigment is seen to have been held in
broad, ample masses. The same scheme of
color has been used for the entire series, and
when viewed in position all are found in
harmony, the eye passing from one to another
without conscious jar or interruption. The
horizon line has been made continuous, and
though each panel is a complete composition,
the frieze, as a whole, is a unit.
To judge of mural paintings divorced from
their environment is impossible, unless, per-
chance, the critic has been endowed with
that visual imagination which is the chief asset
of the creative artist. Considered unrelatedly,
each of these panels is . pictorially attractive;
but seen in place, they take on uncommon
"FATHER HENNEPIN AT NIAGARA"
The painting that has temporarily saved the Falls from commercial vandalism^
A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
12381
"EXPLORATION BY WATER"
dignity and fulfill their function as decorations
with special grace. It is not enough that a
mural painting should tell a story, nor record
an historical event; it must, if it be worthy,
harmonize with the architecture and lend a
note of charm, appealing first to the eye and
then to the intellect.
It took more than a year to execute this series
of thirteen panels, Mr. Millet and two or three
assistants working from morning till night.
First, the general scheme was sketched; then
full-sized cartoons were made and tried, experi-
mentally, in place. When these were found
satisfactory, the work began in earnest; accu-
rate drawings on huge sheets of manila paper
were made in charcoal, corrected, and re-
studied; finally, when absolutely correct, these
were transferred to canvas. For each figure
a model posed, and the pioneer in homespun
arid the blanketed Indian were not strangers
in Mr. Millet's studio last winter. When
the actual painting began, three or four panels
were carried forward at once, in order to assure
harmony in effect, so that at the end the entire
series was finished almost simultaneously.
This work was done in Mr. Millet's studio
in Washington, a great, barnlike hall in old
Georgetown, which was let for dances, recep-
tions, theatricals, and even grand opera in
the days when the National Capital was "a
city in the wilderness." There it was that
the Cleveland decorations were first shown,
being exhibited for a week last June directly
after they were completed.
Among those who attended the private view
which preceded this exhibition, climbing the
long flight of stairs which leads from the street
to the lofty and commodious studio, was Presi-
dent Taft, with the members of his Cabinet,
and others prominent in official life — a fact
which would not be recorded but for an in-
cident which occurred. While pausing before
the panel representing "Father Hennepin at
Niagara Falls," someone remarked that it
was well that this majestic scene had been so
graphically pictured, since, in all probability,
the Falls would soon become a memory.
"How is that?" the President asked, with
evident astonishment. On being reminded
that the Sundry Civil Bill, passed on the
" MIGRATION "
"Since the dawn of recorded history, the West has been the goal of human hope"
12382
A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
"BUYING LAND FROM THE INDIANS"
fourth of March, in order to do away with the
Fine Arts Council appointed by President
Roosevelt, had abolished all Commissions —
among which was that entrusted with the
guardianship of Niagara — he exclaimed: "It
is all a mistake! Write me a letter about it
and I shall attend to the matter at once." The
letter was written without delay and a few days
later the Niagara Falls Commission was rein-
stated with full authority and power. Thus
to Father Hennepin may be due, in part, the
preservation, temporarily, of this great gift of
nature.
THE ARTIST'S VARIED CAREER
Mr. Millet is, and has been for some time,
the chairman of the Niagara Falls Commission,
as well as secretary of both the American
Federation of Arts and the American Academy
in Rome; he is also vice-president of the
Municipal Art Commission of the City of
New York, chairman of the Committee of the
Smithsonian Institution on the National Gal-
lery, and Commissioner-General of the United
States to the Tokyo Exposition — a man of
broad interests and unending enthusiasm —
a recognized leader. Few have had as inter-
esting or varied a career as he, and seldom
does one see creative powfer thus coupled with
executive ability.
Born in Mattapoisett, Mass., November 3,
1846, Francis Davis Millet was but a youth
when he had his first experience in military
life, soldiering in the Civil War, serving as
a drummer in the Sixtieth Massachusetts Regi-
ment and as an assistant contract-surgeon in
the Army of the Potomac. The taste he got at
that time for warfare has been abiding, for twice
since, when a great conflict has been in pro-
gress, he has laid aside his art and gone to the
front, nominally as special correspondent but
not infrequently taking an active part in battle.
He graduated from Harvard in 1869, having
entered college at the conclusion of the Civil
War, and directly after his graduation took
up newspaper work, first joining the staff
of the Boston Daily Advertiser, and, later,
becoming the local editor of the Boston
Courier and the Saturday Evening Gazette.
Meanwhile, having an inclination toward art,
he began the study of lithography with D. C.
Fabronius, which led to a determination to
"SURVEYING THE SITE OF CLEVELAND"
Ohio was the first state carved out of "the Northwest Territory"
A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
12383
"FELLING THE TIMBER'
become a painter. In 187 1, he went to Ant-
werp and entered the Royal Academy; there,
at the close of the first year, he won the prize
of excellence in the antique class; and, at the
close of the second year, the prize of excellence
in painting. Fortune, which has a way of
smiling upon those who are specially capable
of taking care of themselves, favored him, as
the saying goes, and in the spring of 1873
he secured the position of secretary to Charles
Francis Adams, Commissioner for Massa-
chusetts to the Vienna Exposition, as well
as the honor of membership on the Inter-
national Jury, and the post of correspondent
to both the New York Herald and Tribune.
At the close of the Exposition canqf a period
of travel in Hungary, Turkey, Greece, and
Italy; a winter in Rome, storing up impres-
sions and making special research; a summer
in, or near, Capri; and a full year in Venice,
where, under the influence of all which appeals
most strongly to the artistic temperament, he
painted his first pictures. In 1876 he returned
to America, by way of northern Italy, Switzer-
land, and Germany, and represented the
Boston Advertiser at the Philadelphia Cen-
tennial Exposition.
It is a small compliment to attribute a man's
success to his industry, and yet it is true that
opportunity comes most frequently to those who
do not sit and wait for it. A habit of work
avails little unless there is something back of it;
but in an emergency it is a pretty handy pos-
session, and this Mr. Millet early acquired.
His first experience as a mural painter was
got in the autumn and winter following the
Centennial Exposition, when he, with a num-
ber of other young artists, assisted Mr. John
La Farge in decorating Trinity Church, Bos-
ton; it was a stupendous undertaking, carried
through to completion in an almost incredibly
short space of time — a work which will always
stand as a landmark in the history of Ameri-
can art.
HONORS AS A WAR CORRESPONDENT
Mr. Millet's sojourn in this country at that
time was brief, for in 1877 he went to Paris
and in May of the same year gave up his paint-
ing to become special correspondent for the
New York Herald in the Turkish War. Dur-
ing the summer campaign he left the Herald
to take the place of Archibald Forbes on the
London Daily News, which position he held
'BUILDING THE LOG CABIN"
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12384
A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
"PREPARING THE CLEARING"
to the close of the war, serving, also, as special
artist for the London Graphic. It was during
this campaign that he received the Roumanian
Iron Cross, and, on the field of battle, the
Russian military crosses of St. Stanislaus and
of St. Anne; with, later, the Russian and
Roumanian war medals.
In 1878, the war being over, he returned to
France by way of Sicily. For a year he painted
in Paris, serving, meanwhile, as a member
of the Fine Arts Jury of the Paris Exposition.
In 1879 he married Miss Elizabeth Greeley
Merrill and returned to America, settling first
in Boston and then in New York, where he
still has a residence and studio.
The next few years were comparatively
uneventful, but were broken by numerous
trips. One was through Denmark, Sweden
and north Germany; another, a sketching tour
in England, resulted in the purchase of a
summer home at Broadway, that picturesque
little village in the heart of Worcestershire,
where, at one time, there was quite a colony
of artists and writers, and to which he and
his family have year after year returned. In
r ^£88* he traveled in the United States and
Mexico, and in 1891 he went in a canoe down
the full length of the Danube, publishing a
book of his adventures, entitled "The Danube
from the Black Forest to the Sea." Later,
a collection of short stories and a translation
of Tolstoi's "Sebastopol" appeared in print
A PAINTER WITH BIG IDEAS
Up to this time, Mr. Millet's painting had
chiefly been confined to easel pictures recalling,
for the most part, the romantic side of English
yeoman life in earlier centuries. In 1892,
however, he was made Director of Decorations
for the great Columbian Exposition at Chicago,
which, like the Centennial of '76, has exerted
a potent influence upon the development of art.
It is in such work as this — the conception of
a large scheme which permits detailed exe-
cution — that Mr. Millet excels. He can
formulate a vision which is lovely and at the
same time capable of translation, and he, more
than the majority, can patiently endure the
mechanics of execution, retaining the vitality
of his inspiration to the finish. Perhaps the
secret of this ability, if one forbids the hypoth-
esis of genius, is the painter's unusual
'GATHERING THE HARVEST"
Digitized by
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A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
"385
capacity not only for work but for play. No
one knows more certainly the value of recre-
ation than Mr. Millet, and none, it is said by
those who have been his comrades, makes,
upon occasion, a better play-fellow.
WAR CORRESPONDENT AGAIN
After having finished his work at Chicago
and served during the six months of the Expo-
sition as Director of Functions and Cere-
monies, and as a member of the Fine Arts
Jury, he went to England in 1894 and spent
there two quiet years, uninterrupted save by
a trip to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Then
came the Spanish War, and 1898 found him
in the Philippines as special correspondent for
the London Times and representative of
Harper's Weekly and the New York Sun.
Later he published a book on "The Expedi-
tion to the Philippines." In the autumn of
the same year he traveled through Japan,
China, Java, the Straits Settlements, Burmah,
t \0° India, and back to England. In ifi^hc had
charge of the decoration of the Government
pavilion at the Paris Exposition, served on the
jury of selection and also on the Fine Arts Jury,
and at the close of the Exposition received
\ the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
This brings his record almost to the present
time. In the interests of the Commission to
the Tokyo Exposition, Mr. Millet went, in
August, 1908, to England, France, Italy, and
Germany, and proceeded thence to Japan,
by way of the Siberian Railway. The
Commissioners-General, having the tempo-
rary rank of Ministers Plenipotentiary and
Envoys Extraordinary, were granted many
special privileges by the Japanese Govern-
ment; and, after an audience with the Em-
peror and Empress, they were given the First-
Class Order of the Sacred Treasure. After
a month of official business in Japan, Mr.
Millet went to Shanghai and Peking, by way
of the Yangtse River and the Hankow-Peking
railroad, remaining in Peking during the
period of the death of the Emperor and Em-
press Dowager and the establishment of the
new regime, visiting, meanwhile, many inter-
esting places and informing himself of con-
ditions pertaining to the preservation of art
monuments in China. From Peking he
returned to Japan, by way of Tien-tsin and
Port Arthur, crossing the Yellow Sea to
Chinampo and thence to Tokyo. It was from
this trip that he returned to paint the Cleve-
land decorations, throwing himself heartily into
the transcription of a typical phase of early
American life.
PAINTINGS IN MANY GALLERIES
With such extensive traveling, it may seem
that Mr. Millet had little time for actual pro-
duction, and comparatively little opportunity
to win distinction as a painter; but his output,
judged by others, is by no means incon-
siderable and there is probably no American
painter who is better known or more highly
esteemed abroad. His pictures may be seen
in the National Gallery of British Art, the
National Gallery of New Zealand, the Metro-
politan Museum, New York, the Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences, the Detroit Art
Museum, the Union League Club of New
York, and the Duquesne Club, of Pittsburg,
as well as in many private collections. He has
not made a specialty of portrait painting, but
has turned to it with facility. Occasionally he
has had distinguished sitters; and while his
canvases may not have had conspicuous merit,
they have always been well studied, conserva-
tive, and veracious. There is one instance,
however, of a portrait painted by Mr. Millet
being much more than this — being a vital
impression set forth with direct and convinc-
ing realism. I refer to the portrait of Mr.
William Winter, which is familiar to many
through reproduction.
ART FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC
Among Mr. Millet's mural paintings may
be mentioned two historical pictures for the
Governor's room in the Capitol at St. Paul —
"The Treaty of the Traverse des Siouxs" and
"The Entry of the Fourth Minnesota Regi-
ment into Vicksburg" — and a large panel
for the court-house at Newark, N. J.,
representing, the "Foreman of the Grand Jury
Rebuking the Chief Justice of New Jersey' '
for submitting to the oppression of England
in 1774.
But more important than any of these is the
work he did in the Baltimore Custom-House.
At the recommendation of the architects, the
entire decoration of this building was placed
in Mr. Millet's hands, by the Treasury Depart-
ment, in 1906, with the instructions that he
should make himself responsible for every
detail. This he did, devising a color scheme
for the whole building, superintending the
tinting of the walls, which was done by journey
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A DECORATOR OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
men painters, designing decorative borders to
be placed above the wainscot, and himself
executing for the call-room, wherein the chief
business of the Custom-House is transacted,
a series of twenty-eight panels and five lunettes
illustrating the development of shipping from
the time of the Egyptian Galley, 1,000 B. C.,
to that of the "Ocean Greyhound" of the
present day. No pains were spared to insure
the historical correctness of each representa-
tion, but the chief charm of the paintings lies
in the fact that they are in complete accord with
their architectural setting and perfectly fulfil
their function as decorations. One might dwell
at length upon these, laying special emphasis
upon the remarkable ceiling panel, which is
thirty by sixty feet in dimension, and repre-
sents a fleet of ten sailing vessels — ships, a
barkentine, barks, a brig, and a schooner —
entering a harbor on a hazy morning, like
great birds with their wings outspread.
THE DELIVERY OF THE WORLD'S MAIL
Owing to the success of the Cleveland Trust
Company decorations and those of the Balti-
more Custom-House, the Treasury Depart-
ment, last June, awarded Mr. Millet the com-
mission to decorate a specified portion of the
Federal Building in Cleveland. These deco-
rations will be confined chiefly to the post-
master's room and will consist of a frieze repre-
senting the carrying and delivery of the mail
all over the world at the present time, from the
reindeer, or dog sledge, to the turbine liner,
covering a very wide range of interest. This
work will chiefly occupy Mr. Millet during the
present winter, bQt it is safe to venture that it
will not encompass the entire field of his
activities. With his wanderings in foreign
lands, his writing, and painting, he has still
found time to execute seven medals for the
United States Army, which have been struck
at the mint at Philadelphia; six of these
are being distributed among the veterans
of the Civil War, the Indian campaigns,
the Chinese Expedition, the Spanish War,
and the Philippine insurrections. The seventh
is a merit medal for the enlisted men of
the army.
He is an honorary member of the American
Institute of Architects, and a member of the
Institute of Painters in Oil Colors of London;
the National Academy of Design of New York;
the American Water Color Society, Society of
Mural Painters, Municipal Art Society, Fine
Arts Federation; the Arts Club and Kinsmen of
London, the Cosmos Club of Washington,
Century, University, Players, and other clubs
of New York.
THE PERSONALITY OF THE PAINTER
To a man of less physical stamina, such a life
would be impossible, but Mr. Millet has inex-
haustible vitality and can give lavishly without
feeling the loss. There is, moreover, some-
thing in knowing how to live — how to con-
serve the strength, correctly adjusting values
and continually quickening the spirit, with a
human interest broad enough to include " the
stranger" not only "within" but without
"the gates."
I have said that Mr. Millet has an enormous
capacity for work, an abounding energy, and
an uncommon breadth of interest, and beyond
this it is> perhaps, a little difficult to describe
the man, for these are his dominant char-
acteristics. One meeting him casually might
not set him apart from the mass, for he wears
his honors lightly, and is without affectation.
It has been said that he has more often been
taken for a business mkn than an artist, because
of his alert, decided manner and conventional
habit of dress. Certainly Mr. Millet does not
think that a painter should outwardly dis-
play the ear-marks of his profession, but he
does vehemently protest against the common
misconception that an artist is a man who is
good for nothing else. Having abundant
facility which enables him to do anything he
undertakes well, and the power of rapid and
accurate thinking, he is sometimes impatient
of stupidity and illogic in others, but he has
keen sympathy and a kindly attitude to all
who approach him.
He is tactful, considerate, and generous — one
who acts upon impulse and believes that money
was made to be spent, not foolishly, of course,
but without " calculating the interest." He has
a keen sense of humor, and thoroughly enjoys
a joke, even when it is against him, for he by
no means takes himself seriously. He is
essentially a man's man, though at the same
time a favorite in general society; fond of a
good story and able to tell one himself, genial
and kindly, but not hail-fellow-well-met with
any save his closest friends. While very sim-
ple in manner, and approachable, Mr. Millet
possesses a dignified reserve which wards off
unwarranted familiarity and makes his friend-
ship and confidence valuable.
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MY BUSINESS LIFE
i
HOW I CAME, THROUGH MY OWN EXPERIENCE, TO BELIEVE IN PROFIT-SHARING— A
BUSINESS THAT HAS GROWN BY THIS MEANS FROM NOTHING TO $3,000,000 A YEAR
BY
N. O. NELSON
IN THE manufacturing town which bears
my name, there are seven hundred
employees engaged in making and selling
goods of iron, brass, wood, and marble for
house construction. We have some pride in
the fact that we make useful goods, and that
the public responds to our pleasure in making
them of good quality and tasteful appearance.
Last year we managed to dispose of a little
more than $3,000,000 worth of these goods,
about half of which we made in our own fac-
tories. By consolidating all the processes,
from the moulding of the iron and brass to the
final sale of them to the mechanic who puts
them in the house, we minimize expenses and
mass the profits to the effect that in the pros-
perous year of 1907 we made a profit of
$350,000. In other words, I am the manager
of a successful industrial corporation, and what
I have to tell is what my experience as such
leads me to believe will be valuable for the
general public, for the public hears much of
the struggles of politics, war, and labor, but
little of the struggles of business. I regret that
in telling this story the editor insists that I be
somewhat autobiographical.
I was born in that decade of the last century
which boiled over with reforms, religious,
! political and social, the decade in which Emer-
son, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and other
Concord-Boston philosophers gave us Tran-
, scendentalism, and the Higher Law, and Brook
Farm — the decade in which Socialist and
Chartist movements in England and political
revolutions on the Continent persuaded some
men that the social sun was rising, and others
that the night of anarchy was coming on.
I was born in the same year and on almost
the same day when the twenty-eight Rochdale
workmen opened their little cooperative store
on a business plan so sound that without
any change it now serves for the io,ooo,oocr
codperators the world over who yearly do
$1,000,000,000 worth of business.
I was born in that most democratic of all
countries, Norway, a kingdom without privil-
eged nobility, or army, or navy, or enemy, with
universal suffrage and universal education;
but I grew up among Kentuckians, Virginians,
and my own kith.
My father and his friends came to northwest ~
Missouri by way of New Orleans "in 1846, in
pursuit of that larger activity and liberty which
the far-famed prairies of the West andL the
republican doctrines of this country offerechto
all who were fitted to use them. My father,
and his brother and cousin were the leaders
of a party of seventy which for several years
had been organizing to emigrate. They had
sent out an explorer, and upon his report Texas
had been chosen as the promised land. Before
they arrived in New Orleans, the Mexican
War had broken out; and learning of the
recently opened district on the then West-
ern frontier, the party continued their journey
by river to St. Joseph, Missouri.
The company were all farmers and were
fitted to make a living from the soil. They
found a neighborhood in which all of the first
" squatters' ' were willing to sell their unpaid
titles and primitive improvements. With little
difficulty and no grievance, our pioneers pro-
ceeded to raise a living, clear more land, build
houses, and live.
(I want to interject, for the benefit of the
city wage-earners, that the opportunities for
getting on the land are much better now than
when I was a toddling child. Within an hour
of New York, and of every other city in this
country, farms can be bought on easy terms
for a little more than the cost of improvements,
sometimes less; others can be rented at about
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MY BUSINESS LIFE
the amount which would pay interest on the
improvements, maintenance, and taxes, or
farms can be rented with teams and implements
also furnished.)
We became Americans, we went to American
schools and churches, we associated with
American neighbors. I learned Norwegian
and English, one at home, the other at school,
and no one has ever detected an alien accent
in either of my languages.
Social activities were abundant. We had
dances, grubbing and quilting bees, debating
societies, protracted and camp meetings, and
much visiting. Contrary to the present fash-
ion, we came early and stayed late, especially
at the dances. Life was primitive. We were
on the frontier. Many Indians came to town
from their own country across the Missouri
River, and from an Agency. St Joseph,
our neighboring town, became an outfitting
depot for the over-land California gold-seekers
and the pony express. This brought us a good
market, contact with the distant world, and
the first railroad to the Missouri River.
I remenfber well the election in 1856, when
the new Republican party ran General Fre-
mont as the first Presidential candidate. I
have been spectator of or participant in
thirteen Presidential elections since, and they
have been very much alike. Buchanan, the
dignified statesman, was abused as much as
rail-splitting Lincoln, dictator Grant, repudia-
tion Bryan, or injunction-Bill Taft. Against
Buchanan, the labor vote was appealed to
with the epithet, "Ten-cent Jimmy." He
was charged with having said that ten cents a
day was enough wages for labor to live on.
What he said was that this country under Demo-
cratic administration was far better for the
workingman than the European countries where
a working man earned only ten cents a day.
My juvenile farming is a delightful memory.
Farming is real work, but the pitying wail
about the grinding toil of man, woman, child,
and beast on the farm is a mixture of ignorance,
laziness, and morbidness.
Besides the corn, wheat, oats, and vegetables,
we raised hemp. I will vouch for it that James
Lane Allen's poetic tribute in "The Reign
of Law" to the sturdiness of hemp and hemp
raisers is true. The swaying field of hemp in
blossom, six feet and up; the hot August sun;
one arm encircling the armful, cutting close
to the ground with the other; handling the
heavy sheaves, with never a whimper about
"toil," but rivalry in the long rows laid low;
later on spreading it on the ground in the
fall weather to loosen the fibre from the wood;
"breaking" it on the cold winter days; hauling
the five hundred-pound bales to town, and
selling them at four cents a pound — this is
solid work, but it makes men.
We cut the heavy-^ared corn for fodder, and
stacked it in shocks of sixteen hills square.
These were the strenuous muscular jobs, by
the side of which ploughing, cultivating, and
feeding are mere diversions. Do you think
it was slavish toil? Do you think childhood
was outraged, depressed, and wrecked ? Never
have I felt a keener ambition in any intellectual
game than I did in the shocks of corn, the rows
of hemp, the straightness of the long corn row
directed by the eye and the rein. School and
chores in the winter, farm work suited to the
age in summer, play and a variety of interests
all the time. That I now can say I never get
tired at either field or office labor, though I
rarely work less than ten hours a day, I credit
to that north Missouri farm.
I Among the farmers there was much genuine
IcoSperation, such as Kropotkin tells us still
[exists in parts of France. The whole neighbor-
hood would get together to clear land or shuck
corn, and then have a big dinner and supper
and an all-night dance. The hog-killing and
threshing were joined in by any required
number. It was a hard-working community,
and we enjoyed the work as well as the dances
and other recreations. We never had an arrest
or open quarrel, and the only law-suit was a
long-drawn and famous one over a horse trade
between Helmer Hoverson and ChrisTurkelson.
Even when the Civil War came, no blood was
shed nor any neighbors parted. Our neigh-
bors were pro-slavery, and we were free-soilers.
They were Democrats and became Secession-
ists; we were Republicans and Unionists; most
of our young and middle-aged men served
in the Union army from beginning to end.
Of my clan, all the survivors went back to
the farms, I alone excepted. I had got some
smattering of accounts by keeping the books
and making reports for tie officers, who pre-
ferred poker to pen-work. On my discharge
at twenty I was given the civil post of chief
clerk to a district quartermaster, and wound
up his accounts at a salary of $125 a month.
In the fall of 1865 I had before me three
opportunities — to go to college, to go into
business, or to enter the regular army, for
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MY BUSINESS LIFE
12389
which I had passed examination while in the
service, and had received an appointment
signed by President Andrew Johnson. For
the army I had no inclination; the choice lay
between an intellectual career and business.
I drifted into business. My colonel and
a merchant friend invited me to join them
with a little capital, which friends offered to
supply me. In a part of old 141 North Second
Street, St. Louis (still standing), we opened a
wholesale grocery house. I became salesman,
and took the road with all my " greenness."
As greenbacks advanced from thirty-five
cents on the dollar of gold to seventy cents and
more, prices decline and declining prices
always make dull business. We did not
prosper; I sold my interest, and for five years
was a retail storekeeper in Missouri and Kan-
sas, with no net gain, either financially or
educationally. Domestically, I had taken the
steadying and satisfactory step of marrying
and starting a family. In March, 1872, I
came back to St. Louis, and the day after my
arrival I found an opening as bookkeeper in a
new wholesale hardware and plumbing-goods
house in St. Louis. This was the beginning
of my career. I kept the books and the money,
made the bills, wrote the letters, and usually
quit work at 11.00 p. m. From the day that I
bought the set of books and took instructions
from my neighbor's bookkeeper, John J.
Ostrander, I have been on the quarterdeck,
or at the helm, or standing guard on the bridge
of the one business.
I had never looked at commercial books, nor
did I know anything of the mechanical goods
dealt in. By going at it, keeping at it, learning
by doing, I got along very comfortably.
My employer gave me his confidence, then
a raise, and at the end of a year a partnership.
It was a big thing to be a real partner in a
wholesale house, sign the checks and notes,
borrow the money, and run the office. I
had visions, I patronized a public library; but
I still started work at 7.00 a. m., and quit only
when I got through. The year of opening the
house, 1872, was a high-water mark of trade and
prices. Enormous railroad building kept up
the speculative spirit and credit expansion
which the war had established. Next year
came the reckoning. Jay Cooke had financed
the war loans with hundreds of millions; he was
now financing the Northern Pacific across the
northwestern wilds to the Pacific Ocean. The
Union and Central Pacific roads had just been.
built by Government guaranteed bonds and
land grants, while Cooke depended on the
public. But the surplus resources of the
country were exhausted; bonds would not sell
to pay the floating indebtedness.
One clear morning, the house of Jay Cooke
& Company suspended. Panic was on, fail-
ures followed fast, business fell off, prices
tumbled. For six years this panic and depres-
sion held its grip on the country. Factories
were worse than closed; they were wrecked
and wiped out. Whole plants were dismantled,
the machinery melted up, the men turned
into tramps. ,
We suffered with the rest; the business was I
new, the capital small and partly borrowed. I
Early in 1874 my senior decided that the struggle \
was useless; he was dyspeptic and despondent; ;
he believed suspension was inevitable. After j
a conference, he directed me to send a telegram
to his largest and most friendly creditor in
New York, inviting him to come out with a
view to assignment and preference. I brought
back the telegram, persuaded him to let me
try it as manager, he doing the selling,
for he was an expert. It worked. We
made a little profit and maintained our credit.
Toward the end of 1876, the desire to have
my own business led me to withdraw from
the firm, and in January, 1877, I started
in my own name and alone. My interest
in the old business proved to be $2,500, most
of which I spent in fixtures. The personal
credit which I had established was my working
capital.
The theorizers tell us that business cannot
now be started in that old way, that the big
concerns dominate everything. They are
wrong. It is easier to start to-day than it
was thirty years ago. Credit is easier and
capital seeking investment is more abundant.
Let them count the young concerns in any
kind of business; look at the rated capital
of the large majority of concerns; better still,
let them go along the miles of business and
factory streets and into the country towns,
and they will see how large a majority of the
business of the country is done with small
capital and by new owners.
Financing for the old house with insufficient
capital and for my own with none was not
a flowery bed of ease. It is told of Mr. Henry
Phipps that his old black mare would auto-
matically take the route of the Pittsburg
banks, where he went^eJ^yb@^(ggenew
12390
MY BUSINESS LIFE
loans for Carnegie, Phipps & Co. Something
like that every enterprising young concern goes
through, and I did. Sometimes it was a
close shave between borrowing and bank-
ruptcy, but only once did a note go to protest,
and then my good-natured creditor non-
chalantly said that I had better make a new
note for four months. He had slept soundly
while I walked the floor. At no time did
my credit-rating suffer withdrawal or reduction,
neither did I ever need to give a mortgage
or collateral.
Of serious mishaps, there were none; of
mistakes, plenty. He who makes no mistakes
does nothing. He who makes too many,
loses his job. If, as Napoleon said, a blunder
is worse than a crime, we can all go to jail
together.
The uninitiated believe that business ability
is a compound of luck, " cheek," and rascality.
There are Napoleons of speculation who get
their hands on other speculators' property by
one or all of these ways, but most of them land
in prison or poor-house. By a process of
elimination, which, if sometimes slow, is finally
sure, the blunderers and criminals are dropped
from the business-rating books.
In deciding to start for myself, I had clearly
in mind to incorporate into the business as
much of the social and liberal and broad-
gauged elements as it would bear. I had no
pet theory, no formulated plan, no radicalism,
Pbut I knew that I wanted it to be something
( in addition to money-making. Of books I had
f "tead some, but none on economic history or
I theory. It was my own crude but earnest
/ thinking and feeling inspired by current events
y and my own experiences.
I meant to cultivate close friendship with
employees.
The depressed times continued through
1877 and 1878, but 1879 brought prosperity
with a rush. Prices advanced and orders
were abundant. I made a large profit, and
at Christmas I divided several hundred dollars
among the few employees.
I had no factories; it was purely a trading
business, mostly wholesale. The profit of
1879 added about $10,000 to my capital. The
increased business and a start at manufacturing
absorbed it all and called for more. Oliver
Twist was never hungrier for more victuals
than an enterprising business for more capital.
In that year I made my first venture into
philanthropic work. In the hot summer, I
read of the great mortality of infants and
children in the congested district. I had read
of St. John's Guild, and its boat excursions
in New York harbor for such children and
their mothers. The Mississippi River seemed
as available and the need as urgent. I went
up my street and collected money, got some
lady friends together, chartered a big steamer,
announced free excursions for one day a week,
and the Fresh Air Mission was started. The
first excursion carried about six hundred. By
the end of the summer we were carrying tKree
thousand.
In 1880 1 took in a partner with some money,
and bought him out six years later at 150 per
cent, profit. In 1881 I bought out the firm
I had formerly been connected with. The
purchase price was one and one-half times as
much as my own capital, one-tenth payable
in cash, the remainder in monthly instalments
throughout the year. This plunge gave me
no financial or other troubles. It advanced
me from third to second place in my line in
St. Louis and the Southwest, and doubled my
business and profits.
In the six years ending with 1882, I had
increased the sales to more than a million a
year, had started some manufacturing, col-
lected or educated an efficient staff, and was
well established in the commercial world.
But this progress had drawn my attention
away from the social betterment ideas; I had
not, however, changed my views or given up my
nebulous plans. My contact with hired help
Impressed me more and more with the unfair
division between capital and labor. The
recurrent strikes in the city, the unemployed,
the inadequate pay of much labor were constant
reminders that business was not rational, or
moral, or social.
I had gone into business primarily to make
money, and to become a prosperous business
man. The ethics of trade did not enter into
the calculation nor the problems of trusts,
unions, unemployed, and the like. I knew
nothing about them. I went along in the going
ways as I found them. Though a theoretical
free-trader, I voted with the party which
raised the tariff, ostensibly to raise wages and
incidentally to raise prices and profits. I got
passes for myself and salesmen and took
rebates on freight bills whenever I could get
them. These were matters of bargaining, as
much as goods or real estate, until the passage
of the Elkins Bill in 1902 and the Rate Bill in
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MY BUSINESS LIFE
12391
1907. I do not recall ever hearing of any
business concern which rejected special rates
or passes. Just as I know of preachers and
professors and lawyers who have refused the
highest obtainable salaries, I have known
employers to voluntarily raise wages and hold
down prices, but they are exceptions. I have,
however, never heard of labor refusing all the
wages or of farmers not taking all that they can
get, by combining or otherwise.
Intimate familiarity with all sorts and con-
ditions of men from laborer to lord, from
promoter to preacher, satisfies me that vocation
or class makes no perceptible difference in
generosity or selfishness. The methods differ,
the motives do not. Large employers are
much like people of other classes, none the less
human and social. They are conspicuous
because they manage the business by which
all people are served and through which many
people get their living. They are attractive
targets for the critic, the politician, the
muck-raker.
Only a portion of the starters develop the
ability to establish and maintain themselves in
the competition of ability. No other vocation
is submitted to so exacting a test of fitness as
that of organizing business enterprises.
In my forty years of business experience,
I have never faced a difficulty due to any con-
spiracy or restraint of trade. I have known
of sporadic attempts to restrict some one's
free field for business or to "freeze out," but
these have been ineffectual and soon abandoned.
Rate wars by railroads and price wars
in commodities have almost always been
between the new adventurer seeking to take
the established trade of the older ones and the
old ones trying to hold their own. This is
open competition, too open for the good of the
principals or the public. So far from the help
market being always flooded, as is sometimes
claimed, the supply of competent help is
usually short, and the higher the grade the
scarcer it is.
A corporation does not pay high salaries to
head men to squander its money and reduce
dividends, nor to conform to a schedule, but
only because the right men are "cheap at
any price.,, Competent labor is scarce and
sought after, barring the occasional disloca-
tions and the depressions, which, like bad crop
years, must be counted on and provided for.
The problem of the unemployed is mainly
the unemployable, the incompetent, the defi-
cient, those who cannot or will not do anything
well. Of all the charges that can justly be
made against the "factory" or hiring system,
the most serious is that it cultivates the habit
of depending on somebody else for a job and a
living; it relieves the employed of responsi-
bility, kills initiative and self-reliance. The
attempts to organize the out-of-works into self-
supporting colonies under the most favorable
conditions have always failed.
As my business prospered I had mingled
with it several other activities. In 1887 I was
elected to the Municipal Assembly, consider-
ably leading my ticket Although this was
gratifying, the four years that followed showed
me how helpless a minority is. On the main
issues, such as street-car franchise extension,
we were six to seven, but the seven were solid.
In two other elections I helped put forward
reform candidates.
In 1894 I ran for Congress on a Single-Tax
nomination. For missionary zeal and educa-
tional energy, few campaigns have equalled
this one. For two months there were a score
or more of speakers on wagons and boxes.
Luminous but honest hand-bills and charts and
"reasons" were distributed by the ton. The
newspapers gave us more space than all other
tickets together and treated us seriously and
fairly until the last few days, when the party
leaders got frightened. Henry George came
out and spoke to an audience filling the largest
hall, and so did Father McGlynn. But the",
vote was small and served as one of the first '
lessons in people's conservatism and my
philosophy of experimenting.
Reform politics, charity, and reform business
— for I had practised profit-sharing almost
from the beginning — brought me many attract-
ive visitors and gave a healthy variety to my
interests. At first my family were chary of
spending time on cranks but each one in suc-
cession proved such a mine of wit and versa-
tility that the ice melted away. Henry George
and his wife, with their genial and simple ways
and conversation, fascinated my family.
Charlotte Perkins Stetson (now Gilman),
known for her caustic wit and irresistible logic,
captured them with her laugh and stories.
Sam Jones, the "Golden Rule" Mayor of
Toledo, more preacher than executive, came
often after we met in 1897, during his first
administration. I arranged a lecture for him
in a St. Louis opera house and the audience
crowded every corner. Jones was in uncertain
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12392
MY BUSINESS LIFE
health all the while and came several times
to my home to rest up. In 1902 he came to
me in California, desperately sick. I nursed
him in my room, took him to the sea-shore,
and on the pretext of "nursing advice,' ' got
him into the hands of a doctor. He was
skeptical of doctors, as he was of all the profes-
sions and upper-class vocations. Jones had Tol-
stoi's faith that only in the ways and lives of the
commonest common people was there individual
or social salvation. Whitman was Jones's
prophet, and "Leaves of Grass" his Bible.
His leather-bound copy was underscored in
blue, green, and red. I asked him once how
it worked to be Socialist mayor of a capitalist
town. " Not worth a cent, ' ' he replied. Jones
was a pathetically sad man; he carried the
woes of the world on his heart, and saw no
silver lining. The capitalist system, the Social-
ist programme, and the fighting unionism were
equally obnoxious to his convictions about
democracy and brotherhood.
Big, honest John Fiske came for many years
to St. Louis to lecture on American history
in the University course. As a writer on the
philosophy of evolution, early American history,
and evolutionary religion, John Fiske easily
stands in the front rank. His lectures were
models of narrative, interpretation, and Anglo-
Saxon language.
After one of these lectures, I gathered up a
dozen professors, preachers, and other good
fellows and, with Fiske in tow, tramped a
mile to the Rathskeller in the vaulted cellar
under the Equitable Building. Here we
lunched on caviar, Swiss cheese, sandwiches,
and beer. These annuals I kept up for a
dozen years, sometimes in the "Keller," some-
times at the Club, and at my house. At one of
these General Sherman was a guest and did
most of the talking, to the delight of Fiske
and all.
Strange that Herbert Spencer and Fiske,
his ablest disciple, with their positive phil-
osophy of conduct, should have been so lacking
in self-control as to keep the one a chronic
invalid for forty years and take the other to
his grave at fifty-five 1
These outside activities gave me the reputa-
tion of having "money to burn" and liking to
see it blaze, and this reputation has brought me
some humorous experiences. A stir was once
made in my city about the loan sharks, men
who loaned money to salaried people at from
five to ten per cent, a month. A loan bank
for this class of borrowers was agitated, and I
agreed to go into it In the meantime, the
public announcement brought me pressing
applicants for immediate relief. I was
informed by a telegrapher that four-fifths of
the operators were deeply in debt. My
curiosity as well as my sympathy was aroused.
I decided to try the business on my own hook.
I made six loans. I got my money back from
one, a railroad chief clerk, after notifying his
securities of his default. From the others I
got nothing. I concluded that the sharks
earned all that they charged, and that most
of the borrowers are the architects of their
own misfortunes. The harm of the sharks is
more in the lending than in the rate. Pawn-loan
banks are useful for emergencies, but it is
a doubtful expedient to make it cheap for the
shiftless to live ahead of their incomes.
I have made many emergency "loans" and
about one in a hundred has been repaid. I
keep no records of them; I count them as con-
tributions, but I use discrimination. Aid for
reform newspapers and periodicals has been
a prolific source of appeals. They are a hope-
less series of rat-holes, prosaic and superfluous
because there is ready access in the regular
press for all meritorious matter that people
will read. Advanced social theories well
presented are sought by publications having
many times the readers that a little organ
can get.
Among my choice ways of taking the public
into partnership are scholarships for school
children under the working age but with
dependent families. I pay their wages. I
have three kindergartens — one white, in
Leclaire, one colored in Alabama, and one in
Georgia. Kindergarten is the right educa-
tional plan, for in the early childhood lasting
impressions are made.
I have long made the offer to supply farms
of good land ready to make a living to any
town family free of charge for an indeter-
minate period. Also, for colonies of a half-
dozen or more families, I would buy a large
farm of their own selection, divide it among
them and let them pay for it in five to ten
years. I have had some takers, but no rush.
In the meanwhile, business likewise had had
its setbacks. The changes and improvements
in goods brought their tragedies. Just as I
had built a new factory for making copper
tubs, the enameling process was cheapened, the
prices lowered, and in short order my tubs were
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MY BUSINESS LIFE
"393
driven out by {he better white tub — and my fac- a kitchen faucet, and a painted iron sink. In
tory turned to other uses. The same fate over- the pretentious houses there were also a zinc
took marble washstands and drove us into the or copper-lined bath-tub and pan-closet in a
larg6((r .operations of marbleizing the great wee bit of a room. Stoves were the heating
hotels, skyscrapers, and public buildings. We apparatus, and in the rare cases of steam
had built up an extensive pump factory and heating the radiators were of gas pipe. There
this industry also gave way. were more town houses supplied with water
As the towns in our trade territory grew into from wells than from the city mains. Pumps
cities, wholesale bouses sprang up and gradu- were a prominent article in our sales list,
ally absorbed our trade. We could only strive Now the commonest' dwelling is supplied
to recoup the loss by meriting a larger portion with a porcelain bath, and the mansions have
in the remaining territory and by establishing several. Every drain connection is trapped with
branches. absolute safety against gases, and the bath-
Twice we became the victims of boycott rooms are spacious and tiled. Even the
by our friends of a national association of country has been invaded by the windmill
contractors. They said we must sell only to and bath-room and water supply for house and
members of the association. We said we barn.
would sell to any competent dealer — then There are those who believe that all corpor-
they declared a boycott. The first one was in ations are trusts and all trusts extortionate and
1896, lasting nearly a year, and we won. The plumbing goods a gold mine. I invite their
second was in 1899 and again we won. In attention to the sub-joined parallel of index
each case the large majority was with us and prices of the same articles in 1880 and in 1908:
the second disastrous attempt ended boycotts
against us or our class. Some years later a Enameled sink $I0T ^
trader of doubtful repute brought suit against Etctell Boiler IOO Z2^
us and others for a quarter of a million dollars' Painted Sink 100 59.47
damages for a conspiracy to boycott him. The Fuller Bath-cock 100 47.22
testimony of myself and my associates proved Fuller Faucet 100 29.91
a clean bill of health, but before the case was Lead Trap 100 33.81
tried the complainant was arrested for bribery, Washstand Bowl 100 48.58
convicted, and sent to prison, and the suit Brass Globe Valve 100 32.50
dismissed by his lawyers. It seemed .poetic Radiation 100 50.00
injustice that this association should boycott {^amdcd Bathtub I0° 3375
us for selling non-members and a non- wlnp,™^ !£! 3Ml
, , .? - . . .^r ^1 Well rump 100 42.80
member should sue us for conspiring with the l^ Pipe . 100 68.75
association to drive him out of business. We
steered safely between the legal Scylla and the The success of the N. O. Nelson Company
association Charybdis. has been made under the present industrial
However, in spite of these drawbacks the system. I do not believe that this system is
business prospered. From a start with $2,500 best, and I havfe written all these things down
worth of fixtures and a good name as working — my losses and profits — to show that this
capital, the company has grown so that in disbelief is not the result of failure; that I do
1907 its sales amounted to $3,116,387, and not condemn the present system because it
the factory production and house construction has used me ill. It has not. Moreover, I do
to $1,418,003. And it has helped in the great not suggest that it be changed without suggest-
sanitary and civilizing progress that has been ing at the same time what the change will be,
made in the last forty years. Sewer gas has and I have gone one step further than this. I
been carried to the open upper air, the back- have put the change into successful operation
yard pump taken out, and the vault closed, in my own plant before I recommend it to
How many cases of typhoid and typhus and others. How I came to adopt cooperation,
diphtheria have gone with theml In the what it is, and how it has worked in the plant
'seventies the plumbing equipment of a majority of my own company, will appear in the next
of town houses consisted of a yard hydrant, chapter of this autobiography.
(The title of the next chapter will be "Industry with Peace and Profit J9 — The Editors.)
Digitized by VjOOQlC
WHAT A CENTRAL BANK WOULD DO
WHY IT IS NECESSARY TO PROVIDE AN ELASTIC SUP-
PLY OF CURRENCY TO AVERT THE CRASH OF PANICS
BY
ROBERT L. McCABE
[Note. — Some months ago Mr. McCabe published a pamphlet on this subject and it attracted
the favorable attention of the Congressional Currency Commission. The author received so many
requests for copies that the limited edition was soon exhausted, and he has written this article to
meet what seems to be a general need jor an elementary statement of principles. — The Editors.]
THERE is no system of currency nor
any device of human ingenuity which
can permanently maintain prosperity
on an even plane and prevent the periodical
depression of business.
What is needed in the United States, how-
ever, when ready money becomes scarce, is a
currency system which will bring about a
gradual decline of business instead of pro-
ducing commercial upheavals, explosions, and
panics.
Ever since the abandonment of the central
banking system during President Jackson's
Administration, the United States has been
intermittently subjected to terrific financial
convulsions, which are phenomena almost
peculiar to this country and to its banking and
currency methods.
These financial upheavals occur suddenly,
unexpectedly, and in times of great prosperity;
but they seldom, if ever, occur in France and
Germany through the fault of their respective
currency systems.
Still fresh in mind is the panic of 1907.
This condition was not brought about because
the people lacked confidence in the banks,
but rather because the banks lacked con-
fidence in themselves and feared that they
could not command sufficient currency to
keep reserves intact and be able to meet the
extraordinary demands of commerce at that
particular time. Bankers cannot be blamed,
for they, as well as the people, are the victims
of the inexorable operation of our present
system.
When the rural demand for funds is slack,
the country banks deposit much of their reserves
in the reserve banks of the great cities, where
there is a larger demand for loans and dis-
counts. Later in the year, however, the
country banks call for a return of their reserves
to meet the autumnal demands for funds
necessary to move the crops. The city banks
then find it difficult and at times impossible to
get and return the necessary currency, because
their loans are expanded to the limit of their
own reserves, which are largely built up by
the deposits of these country banks. There
immediately follows a mad rush of the bankers
for currency, but there is not enough currency
to go around nor is there any source whence
more can legally be obtained.
Thi§ was the situation that confronted and
deadlocked our banking and currency system"
in October, 1907, and brought commercial
activity in the United States to an abrupt
halt Quick as a flash of lightning, public
access to funds was barred as relentlessly as
though each bank had let fall a portcullis over
its entrance. Loans and discounts were sum-
marily refused, interest rates soared to abnor-
mal heights and became confiscatory, cash
payments in many localities were suspended,
and currency was bought and sold at a
premium. Thousands of men were forced into
insolvency, not because they lacked wealth but
because they could not obtain cash to meet
their immediate obligations.
In France, when there arises an emergency
involving an extraordinary demand for funds,
the Bank of France continues to discount all
good commercial paper as fast as it is presented,
but the bank begins immediately to check
the demand by raising the rate of discount,
a method which has always been found effective.
Those who must have accommodations are pro-
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Google
WHAT A CENTRAL BANK WOULD DO
"395
vided for, but they are required to pay a higher,
though not exorbitant, rate of interest; those who
can afford to wait postpone their engagements
until the discount rate is lowered. No person
or firm having property and credit there is
ever deprived of funds necessary to meet his
financial engagements, as is the case here.
Even during the Franco-Prussian War, when
the city of Paris was besieged by the German
army, the Bank of France never ceased to
discount good commercial paper.
For many years the average rate of interest
in France has been about 3 per cent., whereas
in New York the rates for call loans vary
from 2 per cent, in the spring to 150 per cent,
in the fall. But by raising the discount rate,
the great French bank sets the brakes on the
rapidly revolving wheels of commerce, so that
there is a gradual slow-down instead of a
sudden crash. The central banking system
thus forestalls a panic without causing a jar to
the even tenor of business, but the American
system incites panics and starts the people
down the corduroy road of adversity.
Publicists, statesmen, and financiers, how-
ever, have heretofore hesitated to advocate
such an institution as a central bank for fear
that it would provoke the same political wrath
which wrought the destruction of the second
United States Bank and clouded its name
with odium. But leading statesmen, including
President Taft and Senator Aldrich, now
believe that a modified, restricted, and limited
central bank can be so organized, managed and
controlled that it will be as free from the baneful
influences of both politics and Wall Street as
is our present national banking system.
In short, the idea is that of a central institu-
tion which will codrdinate our local, independ-
ent, and often hostile banks into an efficient
and harmonious system, without inciting the
animosity of any set of men, or violating the
democratic instincts of the people, or arousing
the martial spirit of General Jackson from its
long repose.
The plan now most favored is a govern-
ment-controlled and supervised central bank,
organized and managed in accordance with
republican ideals, to receive as deposits only
the funds of the Government and the reserves
of those banks that are located in the central
reserve cities. These reserves would be avail-
able to the depositing banks upon call, in the
form of central bank notes. And whenever
solvent banks should be crowded in an
emergency, they could obtain additional cur-
rency from the central bank by re-discounting
their customers' notes, or by making loans
with Government bonds or other approved
issues as collateral security.
In this way a central bank would assist,
sustain, and protect our national banking
system. It would, through its branches,
concentrate and supply currency where it is
needed to meet the varying demands of com-
merce at different times and localities through-
out the country — in the fall as well as in the
spring, and in Texas as well as in New York.
Thus, by massing and expanding credits
wherever and whenever needed, the usual
fall stringency would be averted. No crisis
would arise to appal the nation, nor would it
be necessary to resort to the illegal issues of
clearing-house certificates or to derange the
money markets of Europe by forced importa-
tions of gold, as was done in October and
November, 1907.
But in order to handicap speculation and
prevent inflation of the currency, with absolute
certainty, a limitation should be set by law
upon the total amount of free note issues of
the bank. However, additional issues subject
to a heavy tax should be authorized to meet
an extraordinary demand of commerce, if
ever the limited amount of free issues should
prove to be inadequate for that purpose. By
lodging the power in the central bank to regu-
late discount rates, by limiting the amount
of the bank's free issues, and providing for
additional taxed issues, we would have a cur-
rency which would meet every demand and
exigency satisfactorily and with the largest
degree of safety.
The experience of the world has shown
that short-time notes, with ample gold reserves,
form the only sound basis for both an elastic
and safe currency.
The advantages of such a currency can best
be understood by contrasting it with our present
currency. A bank issues its notes in exchange
for those of its customers. When these notes
return to the bank, they are retired and none
are issued in their place until new commercial
paper is discounted. The payment of these
maturing notes by traders and merchants
furnishes the bank with the means to redeem
and retire its own notes as they return. Thus,
having a constant cash income, it has the ever-
ready means at hand to redeem its own notes
in gold or its equivalent
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12396
WHAT A CENTRAL BANK WOULD DO
All our currency is now issued by the
National Government. National bank notes are
Government notes with the superfluous name
of a bank stamped on them. They represent
the credit of the Government rather than the
credit of the bank through which they are
issued, and are, therefore, not real bank notes.
The United States Treasury is a stupendous
bank of issue; but, not being a bank of discount,
it does not possess the lending power of ordinary
banks with which we are familiar. Not
having the power to make loans to individuals,
it cannot issue its notes in response to the
demands of commerce by exchanging Govern-
ment notes with merchants and traders for
their commercial paper. Not having these
quick assets of merchants and traders, which
are constantly being reduced to cash, it has
not the ever-ready means to redeem its own
notes in gold or its equivalent — cannot
accordingly retire its currency when the
commercial demands therefor cease. Its cur-
rency must remain permanently outstanding.
It is rigid and inelastic, and the Treasury
Department remains as unresponsive to the
demands of business as a graven image is
to the supplications of the deluded devotee.
Although United States notes are redeemable
in specie, yet there is only intermittent redemp-
tion in gold to meet spasmodic demands for
the metal. There is no daily automatic
redemption in gold or its equivalent, as prac-
tised by foreign banks of issue. All our cur-
rency is kept at par with gold, not by daily
redemption but by the credit and good faith
of the Government, which receives it for the
payment of taxes in lieu of gold. Our currency
rests on a fictitious gold basis maintained by
Government credit instead of being bottomed
on the real metalic basis of gold, as is the
currency in England, France and Germany.
If by reason of some national calamity or
international conflict, expenditures should
exceed income, as was the case during the War
of 1812 and the Civil War, the Government's
credit would become impaired, gold would
go to a premium, our currency would depreciate
as well as all securities, including the bonds
which now secure the national bank notes,
and losses beyond computation would again
be imposed upon the people. When expendi-
tures exceeded income during President Cleve-
land's second administration, the Government
had to resort to the sale of bonds to keep the
currency at par with gold and maintain the
credit of the nation. The struggle to do this
precipitated the panic of 1893 ^d augmented
the national debt in principal and interest
$363,000,000
The best currency is that which is redeemed
daily in that one species of property which is
received throughout the world by everybody
as money — namely, gold. But a gold fund
which is daily idrawn upon for the redemption
of notes can only be maintained by a bank
which has the power to regulate the discount
rate and which is in daily receipt of an income
from the payment of constantly maturing
notes. A bank can maintain daily gold
redemption because its currency is based on
short-time notes, but the Treasury Department
cannot do this because its currency is based
on long-time bonds and the taxing power of
the Government, neither of which are quick
and available assets. There is a daily auto-
matic inflow of cash to the bank to maintain
daily redemption of its notes in gold or its
equivalent. But as the inflow and outflow of
gold mark the upward and downward move-
ments of commerce, even as a barometer
indicates fair or foul weather, there must be
daily redemption in gold to keep the volume
of currency in constant harmony with the
volume of business.
But the Treasury Department has no daily
inflow of gold for redemption purposes, and w
as there is no daily gold redemption, the j
volume of our currency seldom if ever corres- |
ponds with the volume of business. Our
Government notes do not represent quick
available assets, as do redeemable bank notes.
They are the obligations of a debtor govern-
ment having limited means of immediate
payment. Redeemable bank notes, however,
are the obligations of a creditor bank which
has means of immediate payment far in
excess of these obligations.
With the exception of gold, short-time j
commercial paper, consisting of bills and
promissory notes, is in every respect better
security for the currency than any other form
of property, including bonds and mortgages.
It is either worth its face or nothing, and this
is quickly determined by the banker. But
bonds, although good when first issued, may
from various causes depreciate and become
almost valueless before their maturity and
final payment. It is a fact universally known
and accepted that the steady profits derived
by a well-managed bank from handling short-
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WHAT A CENTRAL BANK WOULD DO
"397
time commercial paper are infinitely greater
than the desultory losses resulting therefrom.
If it were otherwise, there would be few banks
of discount in existence.
The bank note currency of both France and
Germany is based on short-tinie notes and it
has the unqualified approval of those great
industrial countries. Owing to the scientific
plan adopted by Germany and the admirable
and conservative management of the Bank of
France, the currency of these two nations is
considered the most satisfactory in the world.
The first and second United States banks,
within two years after their respective creation,
not only restored specie payments for the
nation during the critical periods following
/ the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812,
but for thirty-six years and until the expiration
of their respective charters, they provided the
people with free issues of redeemable bank
notes based on commercial paper.
These bank notes constituted a national
currency which was uniform and safe. It
was only fairly elastic, however, as daily
redemption in specie could not be strictly
enforced, owing tothe_scarcity_of .specie in
America at" ihat_ time^ Loanable funds at
reSsonaBle rates of interest were accessible to
men of credit everywhere throughout the
United States, and the daily demands of com-
merce were met without loss or hardship to
anyone. Although these banks would be
j considered imperfect according to modern
I standards, yet no one ever lost a dollar by the
I depreciation of their notes; nor did this form
." of bank note currency periodically produce
panics, as our present currency does; nor
were these notes a source of expense to the
banks, as we have seen the greenbacks were
to the Government during President Cleve-
land's second administration.
During the twenty-two weeks in the winter
of 1907-08, while New York Clearing House
certificates remained outstanding, $330,000,000
of commercial paper was used as a basis for
these certificates. There was not a single
default in payment by the merchants and
traders who negotiated this paper. This is
a remarkable record when it is taken into
consideration that all this paper fell due and
was paid while the pall of the panic of 1907
still hung heavily over the business world.
If the notes of merchants and traders is
an ample and safe basis for the note issues
of the Bank of France and the Imperial Bank
of Germany, as well as it was for the issues of
the former United States banks and more
recently for the certificates of the New York
Clearing House, it certainly would now form
a basis of indubitable strength and security
for our currency, especially if it were also
indorsed by solvent banks and re-discounted
with the central bank, as is now proposed.
Such a currency would primarily represent the
property involved in the transactions for which
the commercial paper was executed. It would
be backed not only by the property of the mer-
chants and traders who would make and
indorse the paper, but also by the capital and
surplus of the discounting banks, as well as
the capital, surplus, and immense resources
of the central bank of issue.
By unexampled enterprise in the pursuit
of all forms of business and human endeavor,
the people of the United States have amassed
a larger stock of gold and have more quickly
available assets than any other nation;
but unlike other first-class commercial nations,
the United States does not develop the highest
efficiency of these vast funds of convertible
wealth. The National Treasury held over
twice as much gold during the last panic as
w^s held T)£ the^ combinea central banks of
England, France and Germany — yet, because :
ofTmrlmprovident and indefensible methods ■
of handling our enormous funds of investible
wealth, we were compelled to draw on the
gold reserves of these banks, and this in turn .
confused, deranged, and impeded the onward *
trend of international commerce.
American commerce is forbidden to trans-
mute its illimitable resources of convertible
wealth into redeemable currency for its own
promotion and preservation. It is bound to
the rock of the National Treasury to have its
vitals periodically consumed. The circulation !
of currency is an inherent, logical, and auto-
matic function of the delicate mechanism of
commerce through the medium of banks.
But it is a power of such superlative impor-
tance, involving the comfort and happiness
of men, women, and children, as well as the
prestige of the nation, that it should be safe-
guarded by every precaution known to human
wisdom. Therefore our currency should be
issued by one bank and that bank should
be under the constant surveillance and daily
coptrol of the National Government, and be
kept at all times subservient to the interests
and welfare of the people, i
Digitized by UOOQ IC
HOMES IN WASTE PLACES
A SUCCESSFUL PLAN WHEREBY THOUSANDS OF CITY FAMILIES TRANSFORM UNDESIR-
ABLE LOTS INTO VEGETABLE GARDENS — THE CHILDREN TAUGHT TO LOVE THE SOIL
BY
BOLTON HA
lIT,
STUDENTS of modern conditions of
want and suffering have come to the
conclusion that people have got too
far away from the earth, and that the only
hope of a permanent change lies in bringing
land and labor into closer relation. In Eng-
land they are trying to get the land back to
the people by the Asquith ministry's land-
tax proposals, which are meeting with bitter
opposition from landowners. In Germany
the same proposals have met the same fate,
and at the present time more attention is being
given to getting the people back to the land,
a campaign that has no enemies.
This work is undertaken in large part by
the municipalities. In Berlin, for instance,
large stretches of " undesirable' ' land have
been secured in the suburbs, and are rented
out in small patches from May to October,
at the nominal price of about twenty cents a
month. This land, because cut up by rail-
road tracks and newly laid out streets, was
considered unfit for farm land, but city dwellers
were induced to hire these patches and erect
"arbors" for housing themselves and their
families for the summer months.
These structures — built of boards with a
wide veranda and a corrugated iron roof —
are necessarily of the most primitive kind
and rather flimsy. No permanent structure
can be allowed, because the owner may give
notice to vacate at any time to make room
for other buildings; or the property may find
a new owner who may not be in sympathy
with the work.
The plots are mostly uniform in size, being
usually about one-third of an acre, and are
marked off by wire fences with narrow lanes,
three or four feet wide, running between them.
The children are encouraged to plant the
gardens, under the guidance of parents or
teachers, or sometimes guardians are appointed
who teach the children how to sow seed, plant
viifes, and raise vegetables. German schools
give instruction in gardening to the children,
and at the^" arbor colonies," as these settle-
ments are called, competent advisers give
further direction.
It is not plgy, nor even easy work that the
children do, because the use of the spade
and rake require muscular effort; but it is
ennobling work, teaching the children inde-
pendence, self-respect, respect for others,
and for all forms of labor. Besides, boyish
destructiveness is largely diminished by the
interest created in preserving the fruits of
their own soil, and there is developed a
spirit of willingness to aid^>thers.
Some of the "arbor, fcoronists" give up all
their garden space t& flowers and trailing
vines; others, often utilitarians from neces-
sity, plant potatoes, carrote, turnips, beets,
beans, strawberries, and the like. This means
intensive cultivation on a patch jJt>out seventy-
five by ninety feet — say three ctty lots.
The autumn brings its harvest festival,
when each colonist vies with every other to
make it a joyous success.
Collectively, these gardens are under the
care of a committee, which has administered
them so far with no scandals or friction to
speak of. The committee aims to encourage
self-dependence, but it is recognized that many
who need the arbor most are unable to buy
lumber to build, or furniture to fill the little
summer home. Then philanthropy steps in.
The Patriotic Woman's League of the Red
Cross has built many arbors for such people.
But it is not only the very poor who take
advantage of the arbors. Small tradesmen,
laboring men, and even civil officials of low
degree find it profitable to forsake their tene-
ments in the city and move kith and kin into
these arbor colonies. Many of these families
do not occupy their arbors at night; thousands
return to their city homes at the close of the
Digitized by VjiOOV TC
HOMES IN WASTE PLACES
12399
day, while some parents, unable to free them-
selves from duties in town, send their chil-
dren under the care of servants and spend
only Sundays and holidays with them.
These arbor gardens are established on
every square rod of unused land about Berlin,
and it is estimated that there are altogether
about 50,000 of them. It is considered a
modest estimate that several hundreds of thou-
sands of Berlin children are thus enabled to
live m the open air, who would otherwise be
cooped up in the narrow streets or in the foul
tenements.
Diisseldorf, on the Rhine, and many other
cities have followed the example of Berlin,
the plan varying to suit local conditions.
For instance, in Gottingen, a city of 30,000,
where the plan is just being instituted, they
do things a little differently. The city,
which owns thousands of acres of land, is the
landlord and leases small plots for cultivation
to those who are recommended by persons
whom we would call volunteer friendly visitors,
but who in Germany hold a semi-official posi-
tion. Upon this recommendation, the city will
build a small shelter costing about $75 on a
plot about one-third of an acre in size.
For about $6.25, the tenant has secure
possession of lot and shelter for fifteen years,
and is allowed five years in which to pay this
small sum.
It may be surprising to some to learn that
European municipalities do so much when
so litde is done here. But we must remem-
ber that the populations in Europe are more
homogeneous, and that generations of adap-
tation to somewhat fixed conditions have
taught the race to deal with them. More-
over, the struggle for money is nothing like
so intense there as here.- The millions who
have come here have had the fixed deter-
mination to get money.
But even New York has done something,
as the free tenters under municipal care at
Orchard Beach, Pelham Bay Park, testify.
The city furnishes tenting sites in order of
application, provides a watchman, water-taps
and public comfort stations.
The New York Vacant Lot Gardening
Association, conducted many experiments dur-
ing its existence, which were uniformly success-
ful, and relinquished its work only because it
was impossible to find more land after that on
Bronxdale Avenue, loaned by the Astor Estate
for three years, had to be given up. Every
possible effort was made to get more land, but
without avail.
The last experiment of the Association was
made on a small plot of land on Prescott
Avenue, off Dyckman Street, in Inwood, a
part of the Bronx, as New Yorkers should know.
The land was not suited for cultivation, but
was extremely well adapted for tents, and
could accommodate about six tents com-
fortably. Waterproof tents were put up on
good lumber platforms, and some of them
have been occupied ever since, winters as well
as summers.
More than that. Even on such tiny patches
as could be allotted them, the campers made
little gardens, growing vegetables for them-
selves, and in one instance, at least, having
a few to sell. It is not so much that "the
people will not" as that "the people may not."
There is no lack of vacant land in and about
New York City, but it is held for speculative
purposes strictly, and cannot be rented.
There are those who say farming will not
pay on expensive city land, but gardeners
in the suburbs of Paris pay rent as high as
$250 per acre for garden lots, and cultivate
intensively. They heap the ground with
manure and cover with glass. The same
culture and the French saving of every ray
of sunshine would not pay here, where sun-
shine is plenty and the climate genial, but
American intensive culture would pay even on
such land.
The enormous prices of monopolized land —
half of the land of England is owned by 2,500
persons — have given to England also an inten-
sive cultivation of which we know nothing in
this country. Take, for example, Guernsey,
one of the Channel Islands. It is only four
to seven miles long and three to four miles wide,
yet it supports a population of about 71,000
— 41,000 permanent and about 30,000 visi-
tors each year — and also has exports to the
value of two and a quarter millions of dollars.
The soil is naturally rocky and intractable,
and only 11,623 acres are capable of cultiva-
tion. Yet this little strip produces about four
and one-half million dollars worth of farm and
garden stuff annually, or a little less than $400
to the acre.
If the state of New York were cultivated and
populated at this rate, it would produce nearly
$15,000,000,000 worth annually, and sustain
233,541,473 people, or about three times the
present population of the entire United States.
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MEN IN ACTION
THERE is a clergyman in Blandford,
Mass., who reckons deeds worth
more than words — the Rev. S. S.
Wood. He read in the statutes of his state
that advertisements painted, put up, or affixed
within the borders of a Massachusetts high-
way are a public nuisance, and that any man
may destroy them. There was a conference
after that, and a little talk. Then came action.
As he says in a letter to The American City:
"We simply did it. That is about all!"
■ The reverend gentleman travels with a
paint-pot and an axe under his buggy seat.
The end is not, of course, in sight, but the
immediate effects may be surmised from
further remarks made by him:
"The fiends had chosen perches on the
trees accessible only by means of a ladder,
in many instances. They had made their
frames strong and had driven their board
placards on with long spikes. But my son
was a college boy, and was glad to help out
my stiffer legs. We took my horse and wagon,
a ladder and an axe. That was all. A spirit
of wrath and determination did the rest. We
had them all down.
"There is one man who periodically passes
through the town here and paints the whole
town red — or blue, for that is his color. He
carries innumerable cardboard placards, very
strong, and very large cloth placards, four or
five feet in length. The one he nails on trees
and posts, the other on old buildings and shops.
But I follow him like death's angel. This
last fall I destroyed about seventy-five of the
above named, not stopping with my own town,
but pursuing the trail into two or three other
towns.
"There are one or two offenders left here.
It is only because I have been too busy that
they are not under cover by this time. Some
day, when I have the time, they will be.
"My duties take me all about, and my
horse has learned to stop and wait for me, and
even has learned that the fearsome crackling
made by tearing off the stiff-cloth advertise-
ments is according to law and gospel. I do
not know that anybody else is doing anything
of the sort hereabout but myself, but as long
as I am bishop of this diocese I am in this
business till death do us part."
II
Mr. B. F. Yoakum, chairman of the Rock
Island system, is the J. J. Hill of the South-
west. He seems to know the minds of his
farmer constituents as well as Mr. Hill knows
what word will most benefit the people of his
great Northwest.
In August, talking to a convention of the
National Farmers' Union of Oklahoma, he
remarked that one of the most pressing needs
of Oklahoma — and indeed of all the newer
states— ? is good wagon-roads. He figured
that about $250,000,000 a year slips out of
the pockets of the farmers by waste in the
cost of pulling their loads to market.
To show the people of the Southwest what
he meant by good roads, he invited representa-
tives of the Farmers' Union in Oklahoma,
Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana to come East,
as his guests, and take a look at the roads of
New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Massa-
chusetts, and New Hampshire.
The pilgrimage began at Philadelphia; a
little party of about ten toured by automobile
over the best of the roads of the East They
covered about twelve hundred miles of road,
feasted at times, listened to speeches made
by governors and others, asked many questions
about costs, maintenance, and all the other
details of the making and keeping of good roads,
and went back, at the end of about two weeks,
to spread the propaganda in their own country.
It was a big thing, done quickly and done
well. It is probably the biggest single thing
that has been done to create a tangible centre
for the good-roads movement in the country
that needs that movement most.
But the good-roads movement is only a part
of the plan of things that seems to be the
peculiar property of Mr. Yoakum, the most
daring and the most successful railroad builder
of the Southwest The farmers of that
country have a positive and definite plan in
hand to form a sort of farmers' warehouse
that shall become the all-prevailing factor in
the marketing of the products of the fields.
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MEN IN ACTION
1 2401
It is a live topic in the Southwest, this project,
and Mr. Yoakum saw its importance at a
glance. In general terms, he pledged to
the farmers the active' support of the railroads
in any plan to better the marketing conditions.
Then, in the midst of the good-roads pil-
grimage, suddenly and without any warning
the farmers were brought face to face with a
man who, perhaps more than any other, can
make or break the plan for codperative ware-
houses. For warehousing, as all men know,
depends upon the willingness of the banking
world to handle the warehouse receipts; and
the banking world is well-inclined or not,
according to the sentiments of its chiefs.
So it happened that at a quiet dinner the
farmers of the Southwest — ten of them —
heard Mr. Frank Vanderlip, president of the
National City Bank of New York, endorse
the warehouse project in these words:
" Any warehouse development that is done in
a large way, so that there is security back of its
pledges, so that when we have a warehouse re-
ceipt we know that the goods are there, that they
will be there when the goods are called for, that
the receipt represents practically the goods them-
selves— any development of such a system is
going to be of great benefit not alone to the
producer but to the banker. It will be wel-
comed."
Here, at least, sat the productive trinity —
the farmer, the carrier, and the banker — in
perfect accord. At best, it will not be
perpetual, this amity; but at worst it is inter-
esting to find the heads of the railroads and
the heads of the banks willing and eager to
meet the men from the fields on their own
chosen ground.
Mr. Yoakum wants the Southwest to grow,
so that his railroads may grow with it. He
wants the farmers to cut down the cost of
their road-haul so that they will have more
money to spend on other things, things that
pay "first-class rates" to his railroads. He
wants the farmers to get better marketing
facilities — warehouses, for instance — for the
same reason. It is the method that seems
new, not the motive. He seems to be among
the first of the railroad magnates to figure it
out that there is more money in being partners
with the farmers than in exploiting them.
Ill
The late Governor Johnson of Minnesota,
was not a politician. He expressed His friend-
ships in language that had no ring of political
purpose, and when he condemned, it was
without reference to the political effect upon
himself or his party.
In Minnesota there is a game law which
permits seining, under ^certain restrictions.
Frequendy an exclusive permit is issued for
some lake which the state desires to clear of
pickerel, carp, and other objectionable fish.
The seiner is charged a fee, not to exceed
$2.50 a day, for the services of the deputy
warden whose duty it is to see that none but
rough fish go into the seine. This opens the
way for graft, if the game warden happens to
be a grafter. And this is a story about some-
thing that looked like graft
Carlos Avery is state game warden. He
wrote a letter to an applicant for seining
privileges, asking the applicant "how much
he would pay" for the privilege. Since the
statute fixes the fee, this letter was evidence of
a disposition toward graft, so the applicant
forwarded it to a St Paul newspaper. A
reporter called on Governor Johnson. The
Governor read the letter, and then reached for
the game laws. Then he called up Carlos
Avery and found that he was out of town.
"If it suits your editorial discretion," he
said, "hold this until Carl gets back. I would
stake my life on Carl's honesty and integrity.
I would trust him with my money, my name,
my honor, my life. He is one of the most
honest men I have ever known."
"But the letter "
"Looks like graft, doesn't it?" said the
Governor. "Yes, it does. It's a bad letter
— an ill-considered letter; but even if it boldly
stated graft, I wouldn't believe that Carl wrote
it A secretary might have written it, and
Carl might have signed it in a hurry, as a
matter of form. Carl Avery is an honest man.
I've known him all my life. No matter how
bad a thing looked, I wouldn't believe it;
and if Carl Avery told me himself that he was
grafting, I'd tell him he lied, because he
couldn't graft if he wanted to."
The story was held.
Carlos Avery came back. The Governor
sent for him. Yes, he had both dictated and
signed the letter. What the letter meant was
just this: For the services of how many
deputy wardens was the applicant willing to
pay at the legal rate, and would he pay the
full legal rate for each warden so employed?
No deputy is compelled to work for less than
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MEN IN ACTION
the full legal rate, and the game warden wanted
to make certain. It was plain enough, even
though the letter had been indiscreetly and
hastily worded. The Governor sent for the
newspaper man who had brought the matter up.
"There it is," he said. "I told you Avery
was honest Now, publish the story."
But the story wasn't published.
IV
A journalist who had seen much of the
hard side of the world was sent by a magazine
to look into the situation of the labor camps in
Florida. He went disguised, and after some
roaming about found himself one Sunday
morning in Pensacola. He had been a
preacher earlier in his career, and he deter-
mined to deliver a sermon. The attdience
he selected was the inmates of the city jail.
He applied for permission to enter and was
refused by the jailor. Finally, however, by
saying that he was a preacher and wanted
to talk to the boys, he was admitted. But
he did not preach. As soon as he got inside
the jail he was struck with its awful condition.
It was unclean; there was no sanitation, not
even of the simplest kind. It was full of
prisoners, and the conditions were getting
steadily worse. The journalist spent the morn-
ing taking notes. When he came out he went
to a group of tourists at the magnificent hotel,
explained that he was a magazine writer in
disguise, and that he wished to give a lecture
about his impressions of Florida from the
workers' point of view. They thought it
would be picturesque and amusing, and the
lecture was arranged. The mayor of the city
was persuaded to preside.
For thirty minutes the lecture was pictur-
esque and amusing. Then it took a sudden
turn. The speaker began to read his notes
on the condition of the Pensacola city jail. It
was heroic treatment for the mayor, but he
was a man to stand it. When the speech
ended, he adjourned the meeting to the jail
to see if the indictment were true. He was
determined, if the conditions were not bad,
that the city should not be misjudged; and
if they were bad, that they should not stay
so. They were bad, but they did not stay so.
Eight years ago John King, a bluejacket
on the U. S. S. Vicksburg, performed an
act of heroism in the boiler-room in which
he imperiled his own life to save that of others
— possibly to save the ship. The Navy
Department recognized it by giving King a
"medal of honor" — a meaningless phrase
which the authorities at Washington apply to
what corresponds to the Victoria Cross of the
British service, a decoration which is known
and coveted around the world.
The incident attracted no particular atten-
tion, except on the ship, and after eight years
of further service, Kings's rank in the Navy
was that of a simple "water-tender." On
September 13th of this year, a tube in one of
the steam boilers of the scout cruiser Salem, on
which King is now stationed, was forced out
of the hole in the lower drum into which it
was expanded; steam and water, escaping
under high pressure, blew the flames and gas
from the furnace into the fire-room through
one of the furnace doors, which was open at
the time. The rest of the story is told by the
officer commanding the Solent, in his official
report:
"I wish to call attention to the prompt
and fearless ' action of King, who was the
water-tender in charge of the feed water.
He immediately caused the auxiliary feed-
pump to be started, and going into the
hottest part of the flame opened the aux-
iliary feed-valve to the boiler and closed
the boiler's stop-valve. In doing this he
placed himself in serious danger and was
badly burned. One of the men on the watch —
W. A. Simonton, a coal-passer — was overcome
by the heat. King lifted him through the
air-lock to the deck, and, going quickly to
the blower, opened it to full feed to prevent
the flame from coming from the boiler
into the fireroom and to clear the fireroom
of steam and gas. After doing this he was
returning to the fireroom, but was prevented
from doing so by Chief Boiler Tender Darner,
who, seeing his condition, forcibly prevented
him from entering the fireroom and ordered
him to go to the sick bay. The fact that the
accident was not more serious was due princi-
pally to King, and he deserved all the more
credit for placing himself in danger to save
others."
For this deed of exceptional daring, King
received another medal and $100 in money.
It will be of interest now to see how many of
America's Victoria Crosses a bluejacket may
earn without receiving promotion to a rank
above that of water-tender.
Digitized by V^OOQlC
TheV lolyn Flaie
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WITH a Pierce- Arrow you are unconscious
of the car, unconscious that beneath that
tasteful design and leather upholstery there is a
piece of perfect machinery, unconscious because
the machinery is so perfect.
THE RERCE^ARROW MOTOR CAR COMPANY, BUFFALO, NEW YORK
Membetl Anodition Licensed Automobile Manuficturai < Licensed undci Sclikn Patent)
Highways of Progress
Articles by/ ■»
TAMILS T. HILL
k&A
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A Lost Opporti
On the Pacific
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[LLIAMHEi ANN: LONDON
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The
New
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Records
To get best results, use only Victor Needles on Victor Records.
New Victor Records ere on sale at all dealers on the 28th of each month
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Nov. 15, 1909.
"I have renewed the agreement now existing between the
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The World's Work
WALTER H. PAGE, Editor
CONTENTS FOR JANUARY, 1910
A CHRISTMAS GREETING BY MR. ELIHU VEDDER -
THE MARCH OF EVENTS— An Editorial Interpretation -
- Frontispiece
- 12405
(With full-page portraits of Sir William Van Home, Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, Mr. Charles M. Hays, Mr.
Theodore N. Vail, Dr. H. W. Wiley, Commander Robert E. Peary, Mrs. Clarence H. Mackay, Judge W. H.
Sanborn, Miss Selma Lagerldf, and the late Richard Watson Gilder; statue of " The Miner and Child, " by Mr.
Charles J. Mulligan, and photograph of two life-savers preparing to enter a burning mine; a page of English
and German monorails.)
FACING THE NEW YEAR
ABOUT THE PRESIDENT AND PATIENCE
WHAT IS POPULAR ENTHUSIASM WORTH?
A VICTORIOUS MOVEMENT OR A REVOLT
THE CONFUSION OF ISSUES
THE STANDARD OIL DECISION
OTHER "TRUSTS" THAN THE STANDARD OIL
WHO OWNS THE TRUSTS— THE RICH OR THE
POOR?
THE EVER-RISING COST OF LIVING.
THE GOOD RESULTS OF RAILROAD PENSIONS
THE TRUE VIEW OF INCREASING DIVORCES
SAVING BABIES AND KILLING MEN
THE CHIEF CAUSES OF DEATH
THE HEALING CAMP ON THE ROOF
A WONDERFUL COURT OF JUSTICE
ABOUT TRUTH
LITTLE STORIES OF BUSINESS LIFE
THE UNITED STATES THROUGH FOREIGN
SPECTACLES -'
A MANAGING EDITOR'S NEW-YEAR LETTER Td7X*
FREQUENT CONTRIBUTOR
Luther H. Gulick
Ebww Bjorkman
WHAT I TRIED TO DO IN MY LATEST BOOK
I. Mr. Meredith Nicholson's Aim in "The Lords of High Decision'
II. Mr. Irving Bacheller's Aim in "The Master"
EIGHT PER CENT. ON YOUR MONEY
HOW MUCH INSURANCE SHOULD I CARRY? ....
THE WAY TO HEALTH:
The Pace of Business Men - - - Dr.
OUR DEBT TO DR. WILEY -
FROM THE BOTTOM UP (Illustrated)
VII. Life Among "The Squatters"
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN. PAINTER (Illustrated)
I. Art Education Fifty Years Ago ... Elihu Vedder
THE LITERATURE OF "NEW THOUGHTERS"
Frances Maule Bjorkman
AMERICAN BUILDERS IN CANADA - - - -CM. Keys
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS (Illustrated)
III. A Lost Opportunity on the Pacific - - James J. Hill
MY BUSINESS LIFE (II) - - - - - - N. O. Nelson
A BUSINESS LESSON FROM ANTWERP - Harry Tuck Sherman
MEN IN ACTION ....
TERMS: $3.00 a year; single copies. 25 cents. For Foreign Postage add $1.28; Canada, 60 cents.
Published monthly. Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved. Entered at the Post-office at New York, N. Y., as second-class mail matter.
r
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Alexander Irvine 12448
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Country Life in America The Garden Magazine-Farming
15 nHeyworth Building DOUBL1LDAY, PAGE/ & COMPANY, 133 Ea«t Sixteenth Street
F. N. Doubleday, President £alt « HjPaw } Vice-Presidents H. W. Lanis*, ^retarBigitiz|^VE@©'C5^te
Copyright by Prang & Co., Boston
A CHRISTMAS GREETING BY MR. ELIHU VEDDER
THE DESIGN FOR A CHRISTMAS CARD THAT WON A fl,000 PRIZE
IN A COMPETITION DIRECTED BY MR. LOUIS PRANG, OF BOSTON
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DEC 29 1V-. :1
v->
•^*6E.
WORLtfSWORK
JANUARY, 1910
VOLUMB XIX
Number 3
Zbe HDarcb of Events
THE New Year promises well. We are
having "good times" in business —
with some danger of forgetful recklessness.
We are yet in the shadow of some startling
commercial crimes, in spite of which there is
reason to think that the level of commercial
honesty does rise.
The big problems of the proper regulation
by government of great corporations is still
with us, as it has been for years, and as it will
be for years to come. That we are making
some progress toward this great end, no man
can doubt who considers the change that has
come within the last decade.
Yet great aggregations continue to be made.
We seem, in fact, to be entering upon a period
of renewed activity in their formation. Wit-
ness such events as the combination of the
American Telephone and Telegraph Com-
pany and the Western Union Telegraph
Company, and Mr. Morgan's purchase of a
control of the stock of the Equitable Life
Assurance Society; and there are other large
events of the same kind. Such continued
aggregations are to be expected. Nor are they
all to be deplored; for some of them, wisely used,
may be distinctly beneficial. But their con-
tinued formation will keep alive the people's
demand for proper regulation.
Outside our own country the world is unusu-
ally interesting to the watcher of contemporary
events. In England a great struggle is going
on, such as may take its place in history along
with those great events that mark the exten-
sion of democracy against the entrenchments
of privilege. All the world is wondering, too,
Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday, Page & Co. All rights
just where England will be left, after this inter-
nal struggle, with relation to its maintenance
of primacy on the seas and Germany's ever-
growing strength.
Far more important to the individual Ameri-
can than intricate problems of governmental
regulation of trusts and the affairs of foreign
governments, is the continued diffusion of
well-being in our own land. In spite of
the rise of prices to the consumer and in
spite of a thousand misfortunes that the
despondent could catalogue, the American
people continue to raise the general level
of comfort, of intelligence, of helpfulness to
one another.
A shrewd student of civilization recently
declared that the dominant mood in most old
countries was a mood of individual despond-
ency, but that the dominant mood in the
United States was a mood of such individual
hopefulness as to be at times tiresome to an
observer.
Let us gratefully accept the larger fact; for
we can somehow manage to endure the weari-
ness that comes from continued hopefulness
and cheerfulness.
It is a swift change of subjects from the
moods of nations to one's private affairs; but,
if the readers of this magazine will pardon
the descent, we should like to remark that the
service that it tries to do toward right think-
ing and right living was never before so gen-
erously received. The World's Work has
never before had so high a level of prosperity,
nor so many readers — to all whom a Happy
New Year!
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SIR WILLIAM VAN HORNE
AN AMERICAN WHO BEGAN HIS BUSINESS CAREER AS A TELEGRAPH OPERATOR ON THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL
RAILROAD, AND IS NOW CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY
[See "American Builder* in Canada" . fiagt I*4j6\
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SIR THOMAS SHAUGHNESSY
THE PRESIDENT OF THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RADLWAY, WHO IS THE SON
OF A MILWAUKEE POLICEMAN, AND WHO BEGAN LIFE AS
Courtesy of The Saturday Evening Post
[See
A CLERK
AmtrictmBuiUUrs in Crnnrnda^ /ag* 1*476}
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Photograph by «r*e MacDoaald
MR. THEODORE N. VAIL
PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH COMPANY, WHICH HAS ACQUIRED A CONSIDERABLE
SHARE IN THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY; AND THE TWO WILL HENCEFORTH BE OPERATED TOGETHER
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Photograph by Brown Bros.
A NEW PHOTOGRAPH OF COMMANDER PEARY
WHO HAS ALREADY RECEIVED A GOLD MEDAL FROM THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY POR HIS DIS-
COVERY OF THE POLE, AND WHO WILL BE SIMILARLY RECOGNIZED BY THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
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Photograph by Curtis Bell
MRS. CLARENCE H. MACKAY, A NON-MILITANT SUFFRAGIST
"the strongest suffragists in this country are those women who devote their
best energies toward the developing of their children in order to make
1hf.m good citizens; and woman's first duty is to her home and children"
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Copyright. 1009. by J.
CIRCUIT JUDGE WILLIAM H. SANBORN
WHO PRESIDED OVER THE COURT THAT FOUND THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY OF NEW
JERSEY GUILTY OF VIOLATING THE SHERMAN LAW, AND ORDERED THE TRUST DISSOLVED
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MISS SELMA LAGERLOF
WHOSE BOOK "THE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF NILS," HAS WON
FOR HER THE NOBEL PRIZE OF $40,000 FOR IDEALISM IN LITERATURE
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THE LATE RICHARD WATSON GILDER
Photograph by Bollinger, N. Y.
EDITOR OF "THE CENTURY MAGAZINE" DURING A LONG PERIOD OF ITS GREAT NATIONAL INFLUENCE; POET
OF DISTINCTION; PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN; AND ONE OF THE MOST ATTRACTIVE MEN OF HIS GENERATION
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"MINER AND CHILD " EXHIBITED AT CHICAGO BY MR. CHARLES J. MULLIGAN
FROM TWENTY TO THIRTY OF THESE MEN ARE KILLED OR INJURED IN THE UNITED STATES EVERY DAY
[Set "Savin? Baines and Killing Men" page 124*7)
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Photograph hi I'.ml »••«-.
LIFE-SAVERS PREPARING TO ENTER A BURNING MINE
THE OXYGEN-TANKS STRAPPED TO THE BACK WILL SUPPORT LIFE FOR TWO HOURS IN A POISONOUS ATMOS-
PHERE. THE RESCUER ALSO CARRIES AN ADDITIONAL TANK FOR RESUSCITATING DISABLED MINERS. THE CHERRY
DISASTER WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SERIOUS IF THE MINE HAD BEEN EQUIPPED WITH THIS APPARATUS
[See "Sm'ing Babies and A'if/i'X Af'-n,"' page I24*7\
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A PRACTICAL TEST OF THE BRENNAN MONORAIL BEFORE THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND
THE EQUILIBRIUM IS MAINTAINED BY TWO FLY-WHEELS (GYROSCOPES) SET IN A VACUUM, REVOLVING
3,000 TIMES A MINUTE. THE GYROSCOPES AND THE CAR ARE PROPELLED BY A GASOLINE ENGINE
AN EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF A NEW GERMAN MONORAIL
THE GYROSCOPE IS THE ESSENTIAL FEATURE OF THIS INVENTION ALSO
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ABOUT THE PRESIDENT AND PATIENCE
12419
ABOUT THE PRESIDENT AND PATIENCE
ESPECIALLY by his experience but also
by his temperament, Mr. Taft, when
he entered the White House, seemed the best-
equipped man who had come to the Presidency
in recent times. He was not only the easy
victor at the election by an enormous majority.
He was also personally popular among all
classes and parties of the people. A brilliant
administration was universally expected.
But now disappointment is freely expressed.
You may hear it in any part of the country
among men of either party. Everybody yet
has a personal liking for him. His sincerity
and his good intentions are not doubted.
But many men who a year ago were enthusi-
astic in his support are asking one another
whether he really "understands the game,"
whether he is equal to the abnormal demands
that are now made on a President's firmness
and courage. One man in public life, most
kindly disposed to Mr. Taft, has expressed
this feeling, in its extreme form, in these words:
"He attacked the tariff with all sincerity, and
yet the tariff barons got the better of him. He
sincerely favors Conservation, and yet the enemies
of that policy have got hope that it will not be
vigorously prosecuted. He is truly and most
sincerely the representative of all the people, and
yet the representatives of specialinterests, especially
in the Senate, seem to encounter no opposition
from him. There never was a more patriotic,
high-minded, well-meaning man called to a great
office. But his amiability may be his undoing.
Has he the steel in him that the battle demands? "
This criticism shades down to an unexpressed
fear in less positive minds. But such a fear
is for the moment widespread.
II
Mr. Taft was too popular when he came
into office. That is to say, all kinds of people
had exaggerated expectations of him. Some
were sure that the Roosevelt policies would
be discontinued. Others were sure that they
would be pushed with increasing effectiveness.
Tariff reformers expected great reductions
of duties. "Stand-patters" expected him to
prove himself a conservative party-man and
a careful friend of high protection. The
predatory rich expected immunity from further
trouble — the Government will now let busi-
ness go on! On the other side the belligerent
reformers hoped to see corporation managers
put in prison. Such was the unthinking and
absurd net- work of contradictory expectations.
A rebound was sure to come.
Moreover, a large part of the public had
come to look on the Presidency not as an
executive office but as a centre of cosmic
agitation. Many persons thought of Mr.
Roosevelt during his last years in the White
House, not as Mr. Roosevelt was, but as many
newspapers and politicians represented him
to be. During his last two years any man
who knew him and watched him and knew
what he was trying to do will recall what an
amazing exaggeration of his aims and his
activities and purposes and habits grew up
in the public mind, and consequently what
an amazing misconception of the Presidency.
Even now the perfectly truthful statement
that Mr. Roosevelt was a most conservative
president and prevented, or at least postponed,
spasms of popular violence, will seem incred-
ible to many readers of this paragraph. And
Congress, lacking courage to consider any
vital subject, spread the delusion of a riotous
President as an excuse for its own inactivity and
lack of character.
When Mr. Taft came to the Presidency,
therefore, a large part of the public had a
distorted notion of the functions of the office;
and they expected him to bring to pass by
some sort of magic whatever they most wished
to come to pass. This misconception explains
in part the present wave of disappointment
and criticism.
The prevalent criticism is unfair, too,
because it is premature. The new Administra-
tion is just begun. The struggle last summer
over the tariff, important as it was, was only a
prelude. It must not be forgotten, moreover,
that any attack on the long-entrenched tariff,
with a Senate hostile to reduction, was a
feat that required some courage. -
The time of the real test of Mr. Taft's
large Presidential qualities is yet to come;
and fair criticism or even careful doubt will
wait at least till after one session of Congress.
Ill
It is well to set events in their proper order
and perspective. The President is an execu-
tive. He cannot make laws. He cannot do
what the laws forbid. But he does stand as
the representative of the whole people and it is
his duty clearly to formulate and to insist on
the policies and principles to which he was
pledged by his election.
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
So far Mr. Taft has done that. He has a
well-reasoned programme, far-reaching, frank,
and in some respects radical. He has explained
most of its items with much patience and
repetition. He has taken the people of every
part of the country into his confidence.
He wishes to work out this whole pro-
gramme in an orderly way. He cannot work
it out except by the help of Congress. He has
seen the futility of a feud between the White
House and the Capitol; and during such a
feud nothing can be done. He did not send
obstructive Senators and Representatives to
Congress — he finds them there; and the
worst of them are of his own party. Nor can
he remove them. He must work with them
if he is to do anything.
He must work with them or fight them to
a finish. But fighting will not remove them.
Every Representative yet has two years to
serve, and many Senators a longer period.
Besides, Senators in many states have ceased
to be easily removable even by an indignant
public. The Senators of Special Privileges
are especially secure in their seats. The
President must at least try to work with these
men to bring about the plans that he is
pledged to.
Having made such a programme, Mr. Taft
first submitted it to public discussion. Now
he has presented a part of it to Congress. In
a little while we shall be in a better position
to make clear judgments and fair criticism.
He is bound to do his utmost to secure the
legislation that he asks for. Time will show
his mettle for this kind of work.
As the great forces range themselves, the
people have every reason not only to be patient
in judging him, but to be well pleased with
the main position that he has taken. For in
the last analysis there is but one question
before the country, however many forms it
may take; and that is whether the people or
the special interests shall have their way.
That is the question that Mr. Roosevelt raised
and did valiant work to answer. It presses
harder now than ever. On the main counts,
Mr. Taft stands precisely where Mr. Roose-
velt stood. That surely is cause for congratu-
lation, and not for criticism.
He has shown his strong qualities of con-
ciliation, and such victories as can be won by
conciliation he will win. When the time
comes for other weapons — that will be soon
enough to see how he uses them. It does not
require courage to provoke a mutiny, but it
does require courage to prevent it if possible
and to meet it in the right way if it come.
And the wise and fair part of public opinion
is always the patient part of it.
WHAT IS POPULAR ENTHUSIASM WORTH?
AND yet the President is losing something
of the large assets of the people's con-
fidence with which he started. If he had
struck precisely the right note — if he had not
sometimes struck the wrong note — to rally
public opinion, he would now have the strength
of all the people's enthusiasm behind him. He
made a speech at Winona, Wis., about the
tariff that cut across the grain of his audience;
he accepted Mr. Crane's resignation without
explanation to the public from the State
Department; he has had the long controversy
about Conservation under his Administration.
All these things may be only "bad politics,"
and not bad deeds in themselves. But they
have kept the people wondering why he did
them or permitted them, and asking whether
he be a good judge of men and whether he
may not be deceived.
It is a peculiar quality that some good men
lack and that some bad men have — to keep
the public enthusiastic. It is not always
necessary that a great leader should have this
quality, for public favor ebbs and flows and
is unstable. Still a President is doubly armed
who is right and at the same time commands
the people's enthusiastic expectation of success.
What the President is losing is just this con-
fident general expectation of his success.
A VICTORIOUS MOVEMENT OR A REVOLT
THE most striking political fact of our time
is the rise of the people to a more earnest
interest in public affairs. There is — espec-
ially throughout the Middle West — a very
direct and strong expression of the feeling
that the public business ought to be public
business and not the business of private or
special interests.
This sort of revolt takes many forms. In
city government it expresses itself in a greater
directness of method — as in the commission
form of government — and more concentrated
responsibility. It takes the form also of the
beautification of cities.
In some states — as in Wisconsin — this
feeling leads to the regulation of water-power
as well as of other public utilities and of an
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THE STANDARD OIL DECISION
1 242 1
enormous broadening of public educational
activities for the whole people.
It is this re-rising of the people for more
direct influence on government that somewhat
blindly feels its way to the practical abolition
of the election of United States Senators by
the legislatures, and to experiments with the
referendum and similar political devices. It
led to much crude work in framing the Okla-
homa constitution. It caused the mistaken
cry for a guarantee of bank deposits.
In another form it has become the insistent
demand for tariff revision — even for further
reductions now when the Administration had
hoped that the subject was closed. The
"Insurgent" Representatives and Senators
are the true spokesmen of the population that
they represent.
The popular strength of the Conservation
jdea is a part of the same philosophy — the
"welfare of the whole people and no more merely
private exploitation.
All these and many similar popular demands
are parts of the same movement. Nor is it a
sporadic movement. It is steady, cumulative,
insistent. Disregarded, it would become dan-
gerous to many vested interests. Properly
led, it will prove itself both a triumphant and
a righteous impulse.
Now President Taf t stands in his convictions
and aims for the righteous wrath and the
benignant purpose of this popular uprising
against privilege. But it demands a more
militant leadership than he has yet shown. It
wishes and means to deal fairly even with its
enemies; but it is by a line of battle rather
than by judicial procedure that it will advance.
THE CONFUSION OF ISSUES
THERE is a defect in our political method
and practice. Else the "Insurgent"
masses would now be able to make a stronger
and more direct expression of their opinions.
There is no way to put before the people such
definite questions as these:
Do you favor reductions in more schedules
of the tariff? or
Do you favor the control by the Interstate
Commerce Commission of the issues of stocks
and bonds by interstate railroads?
When men voted for Mr. Taft they expressed
in general a preference for him over Mr. Bryan,
but that preference rested on one reason in
one man's mind and on another reason in
another man's mind.
The English have a better plan than ours
to get the public will definitely expressed.
They elect their legislature on a tolerably clear
issue, whenever an issue arises, and the newly
elected body assembles immediately with a
mandate to do a particular thing. In America
we elect Congressmen at stated intervals, after
campaigns in which everything possible has
been done to confuse and obscure issues,
and after the election the old Congress goes
right on legislating for another session, as
if there had been no election. The system
might have been invented expressly to thwart
the people's will, and to insure popular mis-
representation by representatives.
If requires some boldness to assert that the
people's will does triumph under such a
system, and it can only be said that it triumphs
in spite of it. On the whole, it does; ultimately
it always does. It is profoundly true that ours
is a government of public opinion, that the extra-
legal, informal, spontaneous voice of the
people is more powerful than their formally-
uttered will. Yet we should gain time if we
could take public opinion on definite subjects.
THE STANDARD OIL DECISION
THE conviction of the Standard Oil Com-
pany of New Jersey of violating the Sher-
man anti-Trust Law was expected, following
similar decisions of the courts in the Northern
Securities case and in the case against the
American Tobacco Company. Yet, so quickly
forgetful is the public, that the decision came
with the force of a surprise. The unthinking
received it as the falling of a severe judgment
too long delayed and as the beginning of the
end of the Trusts; and a part of the business
world received it as an unwarranted govern-
mental punishment of success and an inter-
ference with legitimate activity. Who is safe?
they ask. Are not all corporations and .even
partnerships open to attack? What is to
become of our business fabric?
Yet those who consider events in an orderly
way see nothing revolutionary in the decision
that this Trust has restrained trade, and noth-
ing disastrous, but on the whole a reassuring
tendency, if nothing more.
II
Go back a little way in our industrial develop-
ment. Only recently has the corporation
risen to great power. Then came the aggre-
gation of corporations. Then the holding
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12422
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
company whereby a few men, by holding a
minority of the stocks of many corporations,
may control them all. These have been very
rapid steps in industrial organization; and
they have caused the invention of new and
powerful financial machinery. They are
steps forward, too, in organization and in
efficiency.
But, as with all other new machinery and
all other long steps forward in efficiency, there
have come dangers and abuses. In spite of
the fears of some and of the hopes of others,
the old natural law of competition cannot be
abrogated in the commercial world; and its
abridgment, except in a few peculiar cases,
results in industrial wrong and danger. But
the great aggregations of corporations, and par-
ticularly the device of the holding company,
are easy to use in too great restraint of com-
petition.
Here came the clash between the public
interest and industrial efficiency, to say nothing
of industrial greed; and something must be
done. The law must in some way prevent
abuses of these great, new, organizing forces.
It was then that the Sherman anti-Trust Law
was enacted.
Its intent clearly was to prevent the throt-
tling of competition — in spite of the fact that
there are cases in which competition was
already abridged by natural causes and cases
in which it can have no play. The law was
a first rough effort to do a right thing — to
give the people a weapon against the abuse
of the power to stifle competition where
it ought to have free play. It seemed
so sweeping in its provisions that no
serious effort was made for years to enforce
it. Rigidly and universally enforced, it
seemed likely to derange all modern busi-
ness affairs. Yet some regulative power was
plainly required.
Tlien came the effort to enforce this anti-
Trust law. The Government won its case
against the Northern Securities Company —
a holding company. The concrete results
were not great, but there were moral results.
One moral result was to show that a law on
the statute books must mean something —
must be enforced. That was much. Another
moral result was the assertion that the people
through the law and the courts may say that
the process at least of formal consolidation
shall stop at a given point. If that fail, then
further legislation may be considered. At
any rate, the law, effective or not, must be
respected. That was a gain.
m
In the Standard Oil case similarly the con-
crete results are not likely to be very great,
even if the Supreme Court affirms the decision
of the lower court, as it is expected that it will.
The business of the company is not going to
suffer. But it may be put to the trouble
to find a new and lawful plan of organization,
as it was once before put to the trouble to do.
Such a result may seem very small; and so
it is in concrete ways. But it would be unfor-
tunate if any great efficient industrial organi-
zation were hindered in its business. The
real result again is a moral one — the assertion
of the supremacy of the law, even of a defective
law, and a reminder that there is an offense
against the public welfare somewhere in the
advancing suppression of competition.
One result, of course, will be the amendment,
sooner or later, of the anti-Trust law. Another
effort, even if it be another rough effort, will
be made to express in fair and effective legal
form the great principle that as a rule monopoly
is injustice and that too strong a tendency to
monopoly must be prevented in those activities
that are not by their very nature monopolistic.
All these events, therefore, give one useful
and wholesome reminder — that the Govern-
ment (and through the Government the people)
are supreme. Corporations are the creatures
of government. In the interests of the people,
they require regulation and restraint. And there
was a time, yet easy to recall, when this doc-
trine was laughed at, a time when it was hoped
or feared that the great trusts were in the last
analysis superior to the law. This law surely
was a dead letter.
The problem of orderly Government is to
make laws effective. If they are crude laws,
then they may be improved. But the first
thing is to make it clear that no power nor
aggregation of power, whether it be used with
or without criminal intent, can be long used
unlawfully.
This is a great lesson in the fundamental
morals of free government; and we owe it
to Theodore Roosevelt. Fortunately his suc-
cessor is in accord with him.
And now that we have proved that the Sher-
man Law can be enforced, and have won the
contention that governmental regulation of
"Trusts" is both desirable and possible, this
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OTHER "TRUSTS" THAN THE STANDARD OIL
12423
undiscriminating and sweeping law should be
so amended as to permit the prosecution only
of real offenders against legitimate competition.
As it stands, it is a first rough drag-net effort.
OTHER "TRUSTS" THAN THE STANDARD OIL
THE American Tobacco Company, now
under what one might call a suspended
sentence, was convicted of being a trust in
violation of the Sherman Law. The case is
under appeal. The evidence showed that in
the conduct of its retail business it had resorted
to some of the tricks and menaces of commer-
cial warfare. Its record seemed clearer than
that of other trusts that have been haled before
the court. Yet men who read the evidence with
open minds formed a judgment against it for
unfair conduct.
This company will have a chance to set
itself right, and there seems little reason to
think that it will be hindered in business, even
though its outward form may have to be
changed. It may be made very clear that
the bounden duty of its officers and directors is
to see that the "black-jack" be eliminated
from its commercial weapons.
II
The suit against the American Ice Company
in New York brought to light a mass of evi-
dence which tends to show that it used in its
business nearly every form of commercial
oppression. Independent dealers were bought
at the trust's prices. In some cases their
names were still used to lead the public to
believe that they remained independent. Some
were driven out of business by overcharges for
their supplies. The evidence seemed even to
show that their ice fields on the Hudson had
been deliberately broken up by tugs chartered
by the trust.
It was a depressing array of evidence. This
particular combination appears to have been
especially sordid in its aims and vile in its
practices.
Ill
The American Sugar Refining Company
is in a criminal class by itself. It has been
detected in some of the very lowest forms of
crime. Either it or its hired men — there is
no difference to the public mind — have been
proven bribers of the coarsest order. They
have been convicted of stealing from the
Government by the use of false scales. They
have conspired to ruin independent producers
and marketers of sugar. Commercial thug-
gery has no blacker or lower record. In the
factories it has violated sanitary laws. The
slow murder of workmen is among its inci-
dental crimes. Whether or not responsible
officers of this company who had knowledge
of these crimes serve terms in prison, they
are already damned in public opinion. The
people do not believe in commercial piracy, in
privilege bought by bribery from legislators,
in stealing, in lying, and in murder as assets on
a commercial balance sheet. No matter what
the courts may do, the verdict of public opinion
is already written.
IV
It is little wonder, indeed, that many men
of large business interests wear a worried look.
They are harrassed not so much by the Govern-
ment as they are hounded by public opinion.
So long immune from the interference of law,
many of the lesser and the greater trusts have
undoubtedly fallen into ways of loose living.
Now suddenly and perhaps without a chance
for internal reform, some of them are haled
into court, their evil deeds are paraded in the
press, obloquy is heaped upon them, and their
managers go forth with the brand of conviction
upon them.
It is an unlovely spectacle, and some of the
first generation of trust-builders who forgot that
their newly found power did not make them
omnipotent and did not release them from the
old, old laws of fair conduct, may be justly
driven from the business world; and the
business world must see to it that their suc-
cessors come soberly to their great responsi-
bilities. It would be wholly unfair to infer
from the proved crimes of the Ice Trust and
the Sugar Trust that crime is inherent in the
very nature of a Trust, as there is danger that
a part of the public may infer. Yet the very
great power that the Trust gives makes such
crimes easier and justifies rigid laws of
regulation.
The ultimate conclusion is that no corpora-
tion, however great, no " trust," however strong,
should ever be allowed under its corporate form
or its extensive organization to shift responsi-
bility for its actions from individual shoulders.
And enforceable laws must keep this responsi-
bility visible.
We move, by all these events, toward greater
orderliness and stricter responsibility. That
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12424
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
much is clear. And we have definitely gained
this: Governmental regulation is now conceded
to be necessary. The remaining task is to devise
regulation that is at once effective and fair.
WHO OWHS THE TRUSTS— THE RICH OR THE
POOR?
IF the great corporations should be regu-
lated or prosecuted or in any way hindered
from making their usual profits, it is often
asked, who would suffer most — the rich men
who own large shares in them or the smaller
stockholders? The general opinion seems
to be that the loss would fall most heavily on
the rich. Most of it would certainly be theirs,
but the greatest hardship would probably fall
on the small investors.
The American Tobacco Company is an
extreme case. Ten men own most of it.
Four-fifths are owned by men who have each
more than $400,000 worth of the common stock.
In the event of a loss of profits the bulk of the
loss would fall upon the wealthy, not only in
this company but in most others. But the
rich seldom have all, or any considerable part,
of their estates invested in any one class of
stocks. They could meet the loss of every
dollar that comes from the dividends on their
industrial stock without curtailing a single
luxury, to say nothing of a single comfort.
The real loss would be paid by smaller
holders. Here is a partial list of the number of
people who would be hit by the wholesale
"smashing" of trusts:
Industrial Companies and Stockholders
No. of
Companies Stockholders
The American Sugar Refining Company 20,000
The Amalgamated Copper Company . 18,000
The United States Steel Corporation . 22,100
The American Telephone & Telegraph
Company 24,100
The American Smelting & Refining
Company 9,400
The Standard Oil Company .... 5,500
The General Electric Company . . . 5,000
Total 104,100
The small investor gets into the habit of
buying one or two stocks. He seldom varies
from the particular stock that he becomes
attached to. Year by year, he buys one, two,
or ten shares of Sugar, or of Steel, or of Tele-
phone. He does not know how to scatter his
investments among several kinds of securities.
The industrial trust stocks are peculiarly
attractive to the small investing public, partly
because these companies are very big and
the public knows their names well, and partly
because they pay good dividends.
But, since there is no danger that the indus-
trial trusts will suffer suspension of business,
there is another frequently expressed opinion
that is worth mention. You will hear it said
often that they are, after all, not the property
of rich men but really of many men of small
means — that the strong, capable managers
are really working for a large and widely scat-
tered body of stockholders.
This is partly true, but only partly true. The
stockholders are numerous and are scattered,
and anybody may buy these stocks at the
market price and thus share the benefits of
strong, capable, rich management — when it
is fair and profitable.
But ownership of a few shares of stock
carries with it not the slightest chance of any
voice in the management, and widely scattered
small stockholders never come together. So
far as control is concerned, it is in the
hands of a few men in every company, even
if they are the owners of only a minority of
the stock.
The great industrial magnates, therefore,
do work for the public. That is true. But the
small investor has no voice, and he can least
afford to lose the income on his investment,
whenever times of loss come.
THE EVER-RISING COST OF LIVING
HERE are three sentences quoted from a
single page of the Wall Street Journal:
"The increased cost [of shoes] to the retailer
will naturally result in the consumer's paying
more, and concerted action among the principal
manufacturers is now under way for a uniform
advance in specific lines."
"The business of the company is excellent,
notwithstanding the frequent and large increases
in the price of all rubber goods." — From an
interview with the treasurer of the United States
Rubber Company.
"The great demand at present for both hides
and leather, at prices considerably in advance of
what prevailed a year ago, has been given as the
reason why shoes and harness and other articles
made from leather will be increased in cost to the
consumer."
On the same day that these items were printed,
the United Cigar Stores pasted up in all its
shops a little placard saying that conditions
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THE GOOD RESULTS OF RAILROAD PENSIONS
12425
would presently force an advance in the price
of Manila cigars.
During the same week, BradstreeVs summed
up what had happened in the markets during
the previous month. The summary showed
advances in forty-three of the commodities
that enter into daily consumption, stationary
prices in forty, and slightly lessened prices
in twenty-three. On the whole, the average
cost of all these items climbed higher than
they ever were before in times of peace,
except during the summer of 1907 — just
before the panic came.
Within the same week, authentic reports
got abroad that all the big producers of copper
in the United States had got together and
intended to make an agreement to sell
through one agency — a little billion-dollar
pool to raise the price. The demand was
somewhat quickened and the price rose
slightly. Incidentally, the selling value
of the stocks of the sixteen biggest cop-
per companies rose from $485,794,000 to
$579,150,000 — nearly $94,000,000 gain within
a month. Nobody can say that it was a
worthless rumor — this tale of a pool to
raise prices.
The cost of most things seems to be
going up, but the income from invest-
ments goes down as the cost of the stocks
and bonds creeps up. Nor do weekly
salaries and wages rise. The same manu-
facturers who announce the rise in the price
of their products announce at the same
time that the labor .market is "steady"
and wages are "unchanged and satisfactory."
There are too many artificial causes at work
somewhere.
An investigation into one important subject
— the price of beef — made by the National
Department of Agriculture gives some definite
information. The conclusion reached is that
the supply per capita, though large (182
pounds a year), is not as large as it used to be,
and that it is steadily declining. Yet the
Department reports that the price of beef
has not risen faster than the price of steers
in the Chicago market. The high cost
of corn is thought to be the prime cause
of the increased price of meat on the hoof.
Neither the farmers nor the packers, there-
fore, seem to have used artificial means to
raise the price.
But one cause of the rise is found in the
retail trade. In fifty cities, the retail price
bears the following relation to the wholesale
price:
Relation of the Retail to the Wholesale Price of Beef
Cities in the
North Atlantic States .
Percentage of retail price
above wholesale price
• - 314
South Atlantic States
• • 38
North Central States .
. - 38
South Central States . .
• • 54
Western States . .
• • 39
In Shreveport, La., for example, the retail
price is 68 per cent, higher than the wholesale
price; in Boston it is 36 per cent. ; in Wichita,
Kans., 49 per cent., and 58 percent, in Spokane,
Wash. On the other hand, in New York the
retail price is only 20 per cent, above the whole-
sale; and in Baltimore only 17 per cent.
Secretary Wilson's report explains that these
high charges are caused by the multiplicity of
small shops. The retail trade is necessarily
expensive where the customers demand that
the butcher send a man for orders and deliver
goods at all times, perhaps by special trips.
But the multiplicity of small shops makes
the retailing unnecessarily expensive. When
there are many small shops doing the business
that one large one could do more efficiently,
there are many more horses, wagons, boys,
and clerks than there ought to be. They
all cost money to maintain and the consumer
pays the bill.
THE GOOD RESULTS OF RAILROAD PENSIONS
THE New York Central has joined the
list of railroads that pay pensions to
men past seventy years of age. The yearly
pension, based upon the length of service,
amounts to 1 per cent, per annum of the salary
that a man received when he was retired,
multiplied by the years of his service. For
instance, if a man has worked for the road for
fifty years, his pension will be 50 per cent, of
the salary that he was getting when his seven-
tieth birthday arrived.
Thus, what the German Government does
by old-age insurance and the British Govern-
ment has set out to do by the old-age pensions
Act, our railroads and industrial companies are
coming to do here. The Pennsylvania, the
Santa F£, the Baltimore & Ohio, and many
other railroad companies now pay pensions
to retired men. The cost to the roads is not
relatively large, and it is far more than com-
pensated in two ways.
In the first place, without a pension system,
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12426
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
railroad managers properly hesitate to dismiss
old employees who have spent the larger part
of their lives in the service, and to leave them
in poverty. They give them various jobs
at smaller incomes, where old-age is not a
fatal handicap. But nine out of ten of these
jobs can be done much better by young men
at smaller salaries; and the more old men that
are kept in the service after they begin to decline
in efficiency the poorer the service becomes.
Then, too, for the same reason, the advance-
ment of capable men is slower and the spirit
of the service becomes slacker.
A pension system, therefore, not only encour-
ages loyalty and better work by making pro-
vision for old age directly dependent upon the
length of service, but it also makes sure that
beyond a certain limit no capable man will be
held back from promotion by a dead-line of
"retainers." The experience of the railroads
that have tried such a plan shows that it is
"enlightened philanthropy" of the best sort.
statistics of the last few years, has caused
many people to fear that the family life
of the nation is declining. Dr. James P.
Lichtenberger, Assistant Professor of Sociology
in the University of Pennsylvania, has com-
pleted a painstaking investigation (under the
direction of the Faculty of Political Science
of Columbia University) of marriage and
divorce in the United States for the last forty
years, and his conclusions are optimistic.
The period during which the divorce rate
has risen has been a period of social and
industrial transition, and it was but natural
that the family should be thrown out of adjust-
ment. He thinks it no more surprising that
there should have been disturbances in domes-
tic circles than that there should be turmoil
in industrial and religious circles.
He believes that divorces will become still
easier to secure, and that an increasingly
large percentage of people will be divorced.
This process he explains as the nation's
Japan «—
United Stmt g 1
Switzerland w>—
France mmm—m
England mm 2
n
21ft
92
THE TRUE VIEW OP INCREASING DIVORCES Divorce Rate in Countries per 100,000 Population
THE Government statistical experts have
just issued two large volumes dealing
with the marriage and divorce figures of the
United States from 1867 to 1906, and their
summary contains some rather startling facts.
In 1870 the number of divorces granted was
10,962 ; in 1900 the total had reached 55,700 —
an increase of from 28 to 73 per 100,000 of the
population. At this rate of increase, experts
think they can foresee a time when one out of
every sixteen marriages in this country, and
possibly one out of every twelve, will be dis-
solved by the courts. The only country in the
world which has a higher divorce rate is Japan,
where divorce is about three times as frequent
as here.
It is worthy of note, however, that we have
the highest marriage rate of all countries in the
world except West Australia, Hungary, and
Saxony. The marriage rate is larger in the
Southern States than in any other part of the
Union, but the West is rapidly gaining.
The most common ground for divorce is
desertion, but desertion is often made a pre-
text; it is in fact only a symptom, for there is
always some reason back of the desertion.
Cruelty and adultery are next in the list of
causes. Eighty-five per cent, of the appli-
cations for divorces are not contested, and
three out of every four are granted.
The rising divorce rate, as shown by the
"growing pains," and he thinks that no violent
efforts should be put forth to check the activity
of the divorce courts. "The reactionary
attempt in our day to increase ecclesiastical
and legal restraints ... is misdirected
energy and invites moral disaster. Arbi-
trarily to diminish the number of divorces,
under existing conditions, would be to increase
immorality and crime."
This investigator insists that his long inquiry
has in no wise shaken his confidence in the
stability of the American family. He says
that there is no danger that romantic affection
and all the finer sentiments associated with
ideal married life will become less effective.
In his summary, Professor Lichtenberger says:
"The higher education and more systematic
development of women will result in the better
training of the youth, but the home will continue
to be the only school adequate for the development
of strong personality and the attainment of life in
all its highest manifestations. . . . The ultimate
effect will be, not to increase divorces, but to
make them more rare."
This is, no doubt, the true new to take of
the subject; for every such subject must be
\
Digitized by Vj
oogle
SAVING BABIES AND KILLING MEN
12427
studied over a considerable period in order
to put it in its true relation to great social
forces and to see it in proper perspective. This
view of the subject gives no reason for de-
spondency about the American family.
But there are gross and vulgar and shameful
abuses of divorce laws that call for the force
of the most indignant public opinion. For
instance, the too easy escape from the respon-
sibilities of matrimony that the laws of some
of the Western states yet permit, and especially
the abuses of the law that the rich are able to
command in many states.
One such scandal filled the newspapers
a little while ago. A very rich woman in
New York brought suit for divorce against
her husband. A referee was appointed, who
took the evidence in secret; the husband
sailed away on his yacht; the lawyers came
before a court, submitted the report signed by
the referee, and in five minutes the decree
was granted. The name of neither party was
mentioned in the courtroom, and the papers
were immediately sealed.
A poor couple, as everybody knows, under
the same conditions, would have to face the
publicity that many rich couples — not this
one, however — manage to avoid. The courts
or the laws grant to the wealthy a protection
that they do not afford to others.
SAVING BABIES AND KILLING MEN
THE leaders in medicine and in organized
charity, and the leaders of public
thought generally, are united in a determined
effort to reduce the high rate of infant mor-
tality. Different methods are tried in dif-
ferent places, all with a more or less gratifying
success, but the fundamental idea of all is that
the babies must be saved.
But while we are saving the babies, we are
notoriously careless in killing able-bodied
men by violence. We have long had an
unenviable record for our railroad accidents
and for violent deaths resulting from our
industrial expansion in general. The recent
mine disaster at Cherry, 111., has again called
attention to the fact that we kill nearly four
times as many miners per thousand of the
employed as any other country in the world.
There is no real reason why the death-rate
among miners in the United States should be
anything like as large as it now is. In fact,
conditions in this country are such that we
should have the lowest death-rate of all.
Mine accidents can never be wholly pre-
vented, for a great many of them are due to
extreme carelessness by workmen — and there
is no kind of insurance against carelessness.
The Government, however, has a corps of
scientific men, under the leadership of Dr.
J. A. Holmes of the Technologic branch of
the Geological Survey, who are actively investi-
gating the causes of disaster and making
specific recommendations to reduce their
frequency. If the owners of that mine had
equipped themselves with the simple appara-
tus recommended by the Geological Survey, the
record of the fire might have been recorded in
the local paper somewhat as follows:
"A small fire broke out yesterday in the Cherry
mine, caused by the ignition of a pile of straw in the
mule stable at the foot of the main shaft. As soon
as the smoke was seen issuing from the mouth
of the shaft, the two life-savers attached to the
mine quickly strapped on their helmets and oxygen
tanks and were lowered into the shaft, together
with a hose. A small quantity of water was suffi-
cient to extinguish the flames without damage to the
property. There was some excitement among
the miners at first, but no one was injured."
Instead of this result, more than three hun-
dred men were entombed in the mine. Prac-
tically all lived for two days, and the twenty
who were rescued had maintained life under-
ground for a week. There was no explosion,
as at Monongah, W. Va., nearly two years ago,
when the lives of nearly four hundred men
were snuffed out like a candle. There was
no lack of bravery at Cherry, as was shown
by the sacrifice of a number of useful lives
in the futile effort to reach the entombed men.
It was a simple case of inability to control a
fire which might have been extinguished by
a few pails of water, if it had been possible
for a man to live in the atmosphere of that
part of the mine. Three men from the Geo-
logical Survey — Messrs. Paul, Williams, and
Rice — rendered heroic .and useful service
after they reached the scene, but the crucial
moment for action had passed before they
could get there.
One of the difficulties in reducing our great
mortality among miners is the fact that each
state must make its own mining laws. The
branch of the Geological Survey in charge
of Dr. Holmes may devise proper methods
for the prevention of accidents and for the
relief of imprisoned men, but it cannot force
them upon the mine-owners. Six of the
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12428
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
largest mining combinations in the country
have already equipped themselves with safety
devices, but there are any number of mines
now employing large numbers of men which
make no suitable provision for their rescue
in the event of an accident. It is surprising
how many serious disasters are required by
an enlightened people before public sentiment
forces the owners to protect the lives and
families of those who go down into the pit.
THE CHIEF CAUSES OF DEATH
THE Government report upon the deaths
in the United States is based upon
reports from the seventeen states where regis-
tration is complete, and they contain 51 per
cent, of the population. The figures may
probably be multiplied by two in each case
to make the compilations truly national.
In the list of causes of death, tuberculosis
maintains its lead. The summary of the most
important causes shows these figures:
Table of Causes of Death in 1908
Cause Number
Tuberculosis 78,289
Pneumonia 61,259
Heart Disease 60,038
Violence 52,421
Intestinal Inflammation 52,213
Bright's Disease 44,036
Cancer 33,4^5
Apoplexy 32j&7
Infant mortality is the saddest part of the
story. The report shows a total of 200,000
deaths of infants, or about 400,000 for the
whole country. The Government believes that
200,000 of these could be prevented. The com-
ment concludes with this striking statement:
"There is apparently no reason why infants, if
properly born (and this means simply the pre-
vention of ante-natal disease and the improvement
of the health and conditions of living of their
parents), should die in early infancy or childhood
except from the comparatively small proportion
of accidents that are strictly unavoidable."
The lowest death-rate in the Union is in
South Dakota, with a ratio of 10. 1 deaths a
year per thousand persons. The highest ratios
are found, of course, in California, with 18.4
per thousand, and in Colorado, with 17 per
thousand. Both states are health resorts,
and their death-rolls are increased by the
victims of tuberculosis who go there from
other states.
THE HEALING CAMP ON THE ROOF
THE mechanical engineer of an office-
building in New York caught a cold
that lasted for a year. Finally he went to a
clinic of the Board of Health. The examina-
tion showed that he had tuberculosis. At forty-
two, with a wife and four children, he was
confronted with this overwhelming misfortune.
His name was entered on a list and sent
promptly to the visiting-nurse in charge of the
district in which he lives. She visited his
home and gave him a card admitting him to
the nearest clinic, from which in turn he was
recommended, if he cared to go, to the day
camp on the roof of the Vanderbilt clinic.
Admission is free, and he went. If his cir-
cumstances had required it, there are funds
from which he could have received money for
his car-fare.
At nine o'clock every morning he went to
the roof camp. His weight was recorded and
he received fresh milk and a raw egg. Then
followed the morning registering of tempera-
ture and pulse, after which he went to his
comfortable steamer-chair and his blankets
(both marked with his own name) and settled
down to a quiet time with the morning paper
or a book. To those who do not read easily
or do not care to read, sloyd-work is taught or
basket-weaving and the making of fish-nets
and hammocks; and competent teachers help
the women in crocheting, sewing, and knitting.
The children are taught almost as at school,
and nearly every day some visitor to the camp
finds time to read aloud to a group or other-
wise to entertain them. Talks on the treatment
itself are given to make the patients cooperate
intelligently toward their own cures. At twelve
o'clock a plain, wholesome dinner is served; in
the afternoon more milk and eggs; and at five
o'clock the camp closes, and the patients go
home. They are of all ages. At one time
there was a 16-month-old patient and a 60-
year-old patient there together. All forms of
tubercular cases are taken. As long as the
people can make the trip they are free to come.
Once enrolled in the camp, they are not
allowed to permit bad conditions at home to
neutralize the effect of the work at the camp.
Nurses visit their homes and, if necessary,
physicians also. The lightest, airiest room
in a home is given to the patient. Boxes for
sputum, which can be burned, are given free.
The linen and the eating utensils of the patient
must be washed separately. Tickets are given
Digitized by V^OOQlC
ABOUT TRUTH
12429
for two quarts of fresh milk and three raw
eggs a day. All the other members of the
family receive, if they wish, special physical
examination. If they are infected, they, too,
will be treated at the camp. Thus this " camp "
in the middle of the city gives free to the poor
the food, rest, fresh air, and the skilled super-
vision that the rich must pay large sums for.
This day camp is one of the many wise
agencies at work in the successful struggle
against tuberculosis. The latest bulletin of
the Bureau of the Census on mortality statistics
shows that the deaths per 1,000 from all forms
of tuberculosis in the registration area chosen
for enumeration were 201 in 1904, 193 in 1905;
184 in 1906, 183 in 1907, and 174 in 1908.
A WONDERFUL COURT OF JUSTICE
THE Chicago Municipal Court, which has
just completed its third year, is the
most original, as it has fully proven itself to be
the most valuable, idea in the recent history
of the administration of justice. It is a court
organized on a business plan; a corps of
judges with a manager; a court with an
executive officer, empowered to administer its
affairs so that time and labor are economized.
It consists of a bench of twenty-seven judges,
working under the constant watchful super-
intendence of a chief-justice, who are less
than twenty-four hours behind their docket.
This remarkable court handled last year
more than 60,000 civil and more than 80,000
criminal cases. It sentences the law-breaker
on the day his offense is committed, or the day
after. It renders judgment in a suit within a
few hours of the time of its filing. Specially
empowered to make its own rules of practice
and procedure, it cannot be reversed on
technicalities by the Court of Appeals, and as
a matter of fact, less than one-tenth of 1 per
cent, of its findings have been reversed. It has
established, simply by its own "general order,"
reforms that have immensely simplified and
strengthened the processes of justice in Illinois.
For instance, it has begun the practice of
"supplementary proceedings" to enforce its
judgments; it has ruled that counsel must
make final exceptions to the judge's instruc-
tions before they are given to the jury; it has
abolished written pleas; it has invented a
system of simple, business-like abbreviations
to take the place of the old, ponderous "high-
falutin"; it keeps its records in something like
card-catalogues ; it has abolished supernumerary
officers and done away with red tape, so that
a suit can be brought for $2. It has relieved
the superior court and the county courts of
half their civil business; and it has asserted
its cleansing control over the police of the city,
and it has decreased crime by 30 per cent.
So remarkable altogether are the achieve-
ments of the Chicago Municipal Court, so
interesting and important is the plan on which
it is organized, that The World's Work is
making, and will publish forthwith, a thorough
study of it.
ABOUT TRUTH
A HUNDRED or more persons have written
protests against an article that appeared
in this magazine two months ago — "The
Confessions of a Successful Teacher." It set
forth the low esteem in which the teacher is
held and the deadening effects of the pro-
fession, as the writer had found it. Among
these protestants is a man of wide knowledge
and outlook in educational work, who writes:
"The article is false. Similar confessions could
be made by any class of women, or men either.
This is a time of readjustment. Few are adjusted.
Conditions are changing. Teachers are not more
ill-adjusted than others. The conditions described
in the 'Confessions' are incidental, not inherent,
and they are changing. •
"More than that, many a woman under these
same conditions would work happily because of
a different temperament, and because possibly of
different physical reasons — a better physical
basis for cheerfulness.
"Every profession in this time of readjustment
presents similar cases. Most physicians prefer
that their sons should take up some other pro-
fession. So, too, most preachers. I can prove
that there is now no career for statesmen but only
for politicians; and so on with all. Seen through
a certain kind of glasses, nothing is as good as it
was in the days of the fathers. I am writing this
on a train. Our forefathers, when they traveled,
simply shot quail on toast for breakfast. I have
just had in a dining car an egg that proves the
decline of civilization."
The "Confessions," thus complained of,
has the ring of a real experience. Truthful, too,
is this comment in protest. But absolute truth
— if there were such a thing in complicated
human relations — is got at best by a study of
various experiences of sincere persons. It is
a natural impulse for a normal person to take
a cheerful view of life. But to hold a brief for
optimism — to be a professional optimist —
is to pose; and, as soon as you pose, Truth goes
Digitized by VjOOQLC
12430
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
out the door with her handmaid, Sincerity, and
you are left in a false relation to your fellows.
THE UNITED STATES THROUGH FOREIGN
SPECTACLES
IMPORTANT recent books about the United
States written by visitors from other
countries or by foreigners resident here are —
"America at Home," by A. Maurice Low.
(Scribner's, N. Y., $1.75.) The Washington
correspondent of the National Review has long
held a good position among foreign correspon-
dents in this country. This book is a very high
class of journalistic work.
"The Future in America. A Search After
Realities," by H. G. Wells. (Harper's, N. Y.,
1906.) Stimulating and suggestive. It is not
a record of travel or facts or philosophy, but
it is a sane discussion of various striking
features of American life and character.
"Americans," by Alexander Francis.
(Appleton, N. Y., 1909, $1.50.) Letters that
appeared in the London Times. Free from
the insular narrowness which has sometimes
spoiled the work of British critics. Mr. Fran-
cis sees a danger to American institutions
in the tendency to give too much power to gov-
ernors, mayors, and commissioners. He thinks
that socialism is not coming fastest where cap-
ital is most concentrated.
"As Others See Us," by John Graham
Brooks. (Macmillan, N. Y., 1908, $1.75.)
Tuckerman's "America and Her Commen-
tators" was published in 1864, and forty-four
years later John Graham Brooks goes over
much the same ground. He has made an in-
teresting and suggestive grouping of our national
traits as recorded by writers, and to their com-
ments has added some of his own. A record
of books by English, French, and German
travelers in the United States is added.
"The Land of Contrasts: A Briton's View
of His American Kin," by J. F. Muirhead.
(New edition, Lane, 1902, $1.25.) A record
of personal impressions of the author while
engaged for three years in preparing Baedeker's
"Handbooks to the United States." In the
future of America he has great hope. Speak-
ing of equality and the solution of the social
problem, he says: "It would be hard to
determine where we are to look for (it) if
not in the United States of America." A
readable book by one intimately acquainted
with both branches of the English race.
"America Revisited," by David Macrae.
(John Smith & Son, Glasgow, 1908.) Inter-
esting as the record of two visits, thirty years
apart, by a Scotch minister; more interesting
as a study of Scotch character than as a dis-
covery of new features of typical America.
"Dollars and Democracy," by Sir Philip
Burne- Jones. (Appleton, N. Y., 1904, $1.25.)
This is a rather hasty record of things seen and
done by an Englishman during a year's stay
in the United States, chiefly in New York.
Readable and not too serious.
" Three Visits to America," by Emily Faithful.
(Fowler and Wells Co., N. Y., 1901, $1.50.)
The result of the conscientious efforts of a
woman of matured intelligence to understand
our American life. She made three visits to
America for the purpose of studying our society,
our women, and our industries. She speaks
candidly of our faults and our good qualities
as she sees them.
"America To-day," by William Archer.
(Scribner's, N. Y., 1899.) A series of letters
and essays which originally appeared in the
London Pall Matt Gazette, and Pali Mall Maga-
zine, by a trained observer and a skilful writer.
"The United States in the Twentieth Cen-
tury," by Piferre Leroy-Beaulieu. (Funk &
Wagnalls, N. Y., 1906.) The French original
appeared in 1904, and was thoroughly char-
acteristic of the French economist. Few
writers since Walter Bagehot have treated "the
dismal science" in more attractive fashion.
"America and the Americans." Anonymous.
(Scribner's, N. Y., 1897, $1.25.) A clear
statement of the impressions made upon an
educated Frenchman by our American life
during two visits to our shores. A vein of prej-
udice runs through the book, and the author's
judgments are not always just; but the book
is interesting.
"Au Pays du Dollar" by Raymond Gros
and Francois Bournaud. (Leon Vanier, Paris,
1908.) By two French newspaper men resi-
dent here for "several" years; as keen for the
sensational as Max O'Rell, and without his
power of lively expression. One wonders if
the authors ever stopped to think what kind
of a picture of French life would be made by
an Englishman who should clip French pro-
Digitized by VjOOQlC
AN EDITOR'S LETTER TO A CONTRIBUTOR
12431
vincial newspapers and arrange his clippings
in chapter form.
"In the Land of the Strenuous Life," by
Felix Klein. (McClurg, Chicago, 1905, $2.00.)
An admiring picture of American life as it
appears to a French Catholic prelate. It is
written for European readers and points out
the merits rather than the defects which he
sees. He calls Americans the "advance guard
of humanity on the path of progress, of light,
and liberty."
"The American Workman," by E. Lavas-
seur. (Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1900,
$3.00.) In 1893 the Academie des Sciences
Morales et Politique of Paris asked M. Levas-
seur to make a study of the condition of the
laboring class in the United States. This book
is the result of five months' investigation.
It is a work of great industry and profound
knowledge, worthy of a careful reading.
"American Traits," by Hugo Munsterberg.
(Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, 1901, $1.60.)
Five papers on the character and culture of
Americans, as seen by a German psychologist
of world-wide F^pute. Chief emphasis is laid
on the educational system in America, and the
contrasts it presents to the German system.
"The Americans," by Hugo Munsterberg.
(McClure, N. Y., 1904, $2.50.) After being in
the United States for ten years, Professor Mun-
sterberg attempts to dissipate German prej-
udices concerning this country. Writing in
an expository style, he presents a vast amount
of facts on nearly every phase of American life.
These are in the main correct; but, owing
to preconceived ideas of the character and
progress of Americans, his deductions are not
always logical. His spirit is optimistic and
decidedly friendly to our institutions.
"As a Chinaman Saw Us." Passages from
his letters to a friend at home. (Appleton,
N. Y., 1904, $1.25.) The writer was educated
in the United States, and gives an amusing
and caustic account of American life as it
appears to the Oriental.
LITTLE STORIES OF BUSINESS LIFE
MR. E. P. RIPLEY, President of the Santa
F6 Railrrad — a line of nearly 10,000
miles — finds time every day to wade through
a mass of "literature" that would appal the
stoutest-hearted reviewer in the land. It con-
sists of clippings from the newspapers published
along the railroad. For five years this mass
of clippings has been piled up on his desk
every day, and he really reads them.
His purpose, of course, is to find out what
the people along the railroad want, what they
think of things in general, how they regard
the road, and, perhaps, what they think of the
railroad's agents. Mr. Ripley thinks that
some reforms may have been accomplished
as a result, and he has surely demonstrated
that he is a patient and industrious man.
n
Mr. Clark Williams, who was appointed by
Governor Hughes to be superintendent of
banking in New York and took office during
the panic, has now been appointed Controller
of the State. The office is higher, but the
salary is lower. Still the new position gives him
control over the appointment of a new Super-
intendent of Insurance — and that is important.
He is a comparatively young man who came
from Canandaigua, N. Y., was trained in Wall
Street — very near the heart of it, too — and
knows the intricacies of banking and is an
expert in financial practice. He gives up, for
a time at least, a very lucrative career in the
financial world to accept a salary as a public
officer of $6,000 a year — about what he would
have paid one of his best clerks in the Columbia
Trust Company or the United States Mort-
gage & Trust Company.
His friends give him credit for a real desire
to serve the state in a position where it most
needs good service; and he can afford to do
it because he has behind him a big estate in
western New York. He is yet a young man,
with complete Wall Street training, a clean and
efficient record in the service of the people, with
a private fortune, and with the friendship and
confidence of the financial giants.
There are five great banking institutions
in New York that are now eagerly looking
for new presidents. Two, at least, would be
willing to pay Mr. Williams from three to five
times what he is making at Albany. But he
is making an investment for the future.
A MANAGING EDITOR'S NEW YEAR LETTER TO
A FREQUENT CONTRIBUTOR
My dear Sir : On the long list of writers who
have sent manuscripts to my desk during 1909,
I note that yours is the most frequent name.
I see also that all but one of your articles
went back to you. This was hard luck, I
Digitized by V^OOQlC
12432
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
know, but I congratulate you on your per-
sistence and I should like to help you improve
the record for 1910.
We should rather send you a check any day
than return a manuscript. If you but knew
how hungry we are for good "copy," and how
eagerly all our editors go through their morn-
ing's mail in the hope of finding it, you would
write — not more, but more to the point.
Every manuscript that comes into this office
finds an outstretched, welcoming hand. There
was never a time when a vigorous writer with a
real story to tell had a better chance.
Your ill-luck is not due to the fact that you
have not yet made a great name for yourself.
Some of the best articles come from writers
whose names the public never heard of before;
and many articles are sent back to writers
whose names frequently adorn the title-pages
of other magazines. Moreover, it is no
unusual occurrence for our own editors to
decline their own articles, no matter how
much labor they have cost.
Do you remember sending an article on
"The Irrigation Canals of the Babylonians?"
What possible chance was there for it in The
World's Work, which is a magazine of present
interest? If you had gathered all the big facts
about the Gunnison tunnel — and been the
first man to do so — your name would have
been writ large on the stub of our cheque-book.
I remember another — "The Educati n of
the Boy." What is the use of solving the
world's problems, if you don't tell the answer
in an interesting way? Your article was no
more interesting nor convincing than a geometry
without diagrams. If we had accepted it, only
the proof-readers would have read it to the end.
Then there was your article on "The Hook-
worm Scourge and the Cure." You were
sure that we would take that because the sub-
ject was new, and because of our steady cam-
paign for better health and more efficient work.
There were two good reasons why this went
back to you in the next mail. First, our article
on "The Cure for Two Million Sick," pub-
lished in May, told all about the scourge and
set the ball a-rolling. Second, only an expert
investigator ought to discuss its medical
treatment.
There was another reason why we declined
your article on "The Out-door Treatment of
Tuberculosis." We had two articles on that
subject already on hand, and both were better
than yours.
I remember that you thought us unfair
because we would not print your reply to
"The Confessions of a Successful School-
teacher." You wished to annihilate it. Your
article declared that the unknown writer had
slandered a noble profession; you asserted that
the great majority of teachers are neither
disgusted with nor ashamed of their work;
and you wished to record, for all time to come,
that the business of teaching is one of the most
dignified of all human occupations. But you
didn't give specific facts to prove it — and you
admitted that you had left this dignified pro-
fession after five years' experience. You wrote
a vehement, general denial in criticism of a
clear-cut, definite experience. Did you never
read the Old Testament story of the impetuous
warrior who slew two men better than himself?
You sent to us the other day an article on
"The Political Crisis in Mexico," with seven-
teen photographs. The illustrations were good
enough, but The World's Work is not a
picture-book. The article was hopelessly bad.
You had chosen a complicated subject, taken
a partisan view, and reached conclusions after
a three days' sojourn in Mexico City. Can
you imagine an article on American politics
written by a Mexican under the same con-
ditions? Aside from that, can you imagine the
average American reader getting wildly excited
over any article about Mexico?
In addition to your article that was published,
there were two others good enough to print
— or could have been made so with a. little
carpenter-work. "Our National Waste" was
full of big facts and you handled them in a
large way. It was your misfortune, however,
that we had already engaged the one great
authority on Conservation to write three articles
on the subject. As I wrote you, we could not
take the edge off his articles by publishing
yours in advance.
The other, "Our Governmental Expense
Account," struck a similar snag. One of our
ablest staff writers has been working for
months on that very subject. For this ill-
luck you are not to be blamed — nor are we.
If you really wish to write for The World's
Work — and I hope that you do — let me
suggest that you write to us in advance and
ask if we are interested in the proposed sub-
ject. This will often save your time, labor, and
postage — and it will also save us some work.
I want to caution you against a habit that
will wreck you in the end if you don't curb it
Digitized by V^OOQlC
WHAT I TRIED TO DO IN MY LATEST BOOK
12433
— that of stringing out indefinitely a single idea
that is perfectly clear in your first statement of
it. For instance, if you start out to show that
black is the opposite of white, do not say:
"That color which is referred to by artists and
all the rest of the world as black is essentially
different from that which they call white. As a
matter of fact, black is essentially different from
white. Let me be more specific. If black were
at the North Pole, white would of necessity be
at the South Pole — that is to say, as far apart as
it is possible for them to be. It is easy to be seen,
in the light of these considerations, that every
intelligent man should always make a careful
differentiation between the two — that is to say,
he should never confuse black with white."
We should like to have you write during
1 9 10 at least one article so well that no one
else would think of submitting another on that
subject for two years. E. A. F.
WHAT I TRIED TO DO IN MY LATEST
BOOK
I. MR. MEREDITH NICHOLSON'S AIM IN "THE LORDS OF
HIGH DECISION"
THE human relationships set forth in
" The Lords of High Decision" were in
my mind before I thought of taking
Pittsburg as the scene of the story. But
the real beginning grew out of a feeling that
had grown upon me through several years
that in the processes and experiments of
democracy lie many and great opportunities
for the novelist.
I do not care greatly for problem or special-
plea novels, as such, though there have been
many striking and effective ones, as varied
in subject and manner as "The Modern
Instance" and "The Jungle." They are too
prone to be mechanical, with the "purpose"
sticking out disagreeably. But a great subject
in itself does not make a great novel; the
characters must be clean-cut and authentic or
they will express nothing. They must be human
beings, made to exist, to suffer, and to grow
before the reader's eyes. It is an easy matter,
comparatively speaking, to describe characters;
the test of the author's quality lies in his
ability to depict moral and spiritual change;
nor is it enough to say that changes have taken
place — the sense of change must be commu-
nicated fully to the reader's consciousness with
such force that he is thoroughly convinced.
When I once had Pittsburg firmly in my
mind, I sought a character who should express
the city — not in caricature, but in the reality
of a realism relieved by humor (if I know what
humor is), and lifted by cheer and hope. I
am only about half realist; the romantic
aspects of life — the life that I see and touch
— interest me immensely. It is held by some
critics that fiction must be either one thing or
another, but I prefer a "blend" of the realistic
and the romantic. This may be a tempera-
mental defect in me, but I am not ashamed of
it. I know the rough, hard aspects of Pitts-
burg, but I see glowing above the Iron City
not only romance but poetry.
And so, if any one cares to know how I came
to write this story, Wayne Craighill stands
for the city itself. He gropes his way toward
the light, much as the city itself is doing; he
is, as one of my other characters puts it, a
man in search of his own soul; and, as he
finds it through labor, so must the city, and so
must our democracy in all its forms and expres-
sions. Against him I set up bis father — the
familiar, smug, complacent reformer, self-
deceived into believing that the rough edges
of our difficult problems can be ground down
smoothly by prayers and resolutions. I tried
to illustrate, through my heroine, Jean Morley,
the spirit of endeavor and achievement and
the relationship that exists between us all,
the dependence of one social class upon another.
Those who do not care for this sort of symbol-
ism may overlook it; and for such I can only
hope that the story fulfills the first law of the
novel, which is that it must entertain.
To illustrate democracy's weakness, strength,
and needs through the medium of the novel
seems to me the highest task that can engage
the pen of Americans. I salute Mr. Winston
Digitized by V^OOQlC
12434
WHAT I TRIED TO DO IN MY LATEST BOOK
Churchill, who in several notable instances
and with growing power has addressed himself
to phases of our political life; and Mr. William
Allen White, whose "A Certain Rich Man"
depicts so splendidly the social and political
development of his own soil. Both are essen-
tially American, animated by a high serious-
ness and sincerity, and both these writers
are deeply informed and keen critics of life.
Against such performances the transatlantic
marriage, the vulgarity and banality of the
fantastically prosperous, the tame American-
ization of the Gallic triangle are like the
dabblings of the timid swimmer in tepid back-
water left by the tide, while the clear, brimming
ocean thunders on the broad beaches beyond.
The twilight of the poets — now rapidly
deepening into starless night — means simply
(if I am entitled to an opinion) that poetry is
not an adequate medium for those who would
utter, effectively the messages of democracy.
Prose drama and the novel are far better
adapted to the discussion of the problems that
to-day engage mankind. In the poetic drama,
however, as Mr. Cale Young Rice and Mr.
Percy Mackaye essay it, lies hope for that
teaching of idealism which must be always and
inevitably the melodious accompaniment of
the sturdy tramp of democracy. To the novel
we must leave the holding up of the mirror
that our diverse peoples may know each other,
Mr. White's Kansas speaking to Mr. Churchill's
New Hampshire, and Miss Johnston's cava-
lier catching step with Nicholas Worth's new
"Southerner."
The critics of the far future, standing aghast
before the huge pyramids of the fiction of
to-day, will, I should say, of necessity restrict
their attention to those novels and those alone
which deal with life — the actual, vibrating life
of this America, in those expressions which Walt
Whitman found in democracy after seeking
vainly in "paged fables" for its "Intentions":
"It is in the present — it is this earth to-day,
It is in Democracy — (the purport and aim of
all the past),
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day
— the average man of to-day,
It is in languages, social customs, literatures,
arts,
It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships,
machinery, politics, creeds, modern im-
provements, and the interchange of nations,
All for the modern — all for the average man
of to-day."
It was in some such groping after the truth,
as chanted in these lines, that I wrote "The
Lords of High Decision."
II. MR. IRVING BACHELLER'S AIM IN "THE MASTER'
IN writing "The Master," I aimed:
To lead my readers, with the help of
cheerful company and stirring episodes, to a
clearer knowledge of the great evil of war,
and to create new enthusiasm for the old truth
that out of one blood God has created all
peoples. In other words, to help along a
feeling of brotherhood between man and man
the world over.
To suggest what can be done with a child's
mind under training which compels it to
depend upon latent but neglected powers,
and to feel its own way to the truth. To
suggest, for instance, the deeper insight which
may be imparted to the human eye by a patient
training of its power of observation in child-
hood. So I planned a boy to whom no lan-
guage is taught and who finds, therefore, a new
inlet of knowledge. How would he man-
age to convey his own thoughts and interpret
those of his master? He would manage it
somehow, but how? What conclusion would
he arrive at in time as to himself and the world
in which he had found himself and the cause
and purpose of both? For this experiment
I invented that Isle of the Sky in the Wilderness.
When this youth comes out among men with
the purity and simplicity of childhood and a
wisdom greater than that of his fellows, his
work and the book begin. He sees clearly
a truth to which ancient custom has blinded
us, namely, that war is the greatest evil in the
world.
In my hero I sought to show the power of
high thinking over one's mind and body; in
my villain the like power of low thinking.
I sought to show how a man would express
himself in this modern world with a spirit like
that of Jesus Christ in him.
All this I have sought to accomplish by
holding my readers with certain novel char-
acters and expedients:
Digitized by VjOOQlC
EIGHT PER CENT. OlN YOUR MONEY
1*435
(1) The anonymous book, which compels
the man who falsely claims its authorship to
live up to its teaching; and this in time
changes his character and breaks down the
plan of his life.
(2) By a love between a young man and a
young woman which is clearly indicated and
well understood by both, but never expressed
in words until it comes to its climax.
This, chiefly, is the task I set myself.
EIGHT PER CENT. ON YOUR MONEY
A SALESMAN for a New York bond
house called on a retired farmer up
the state last month to try to sell
him a block of street-railway bonds. The
bonds were a second-mortgage issue on a
good road. They sold at a price that was
conservative.
The old man listened to the long story with
perfect composure. After a while he said:
"Young man, I guess your bonds are per-
fectiy good. Now I have, in all, about $15,000
to live on. Tell me just how much money
I could get out of your bonds every year if I
bought them."
The salesman figured for a minute, then said:
"I make it $810."
The reply was staggering:
"I have to have $1,100; and it's hard going
if I don't get $1,200. You see, it costs a lot
more to live than it used to; and the youngest
boy ain't quite ready for college yet."
The salesman saw the situation, so he
switched the talk around to generalities. After
a few minutes the old man got to like him well
enough to ask his advice. Finally, he told
him just how he managed to get $1,200 a
year out of his $15,000. The list, as the
salesman remembers it, is as follows:
A RETIRED PARMER'S INVESTMENT
Amount Investment Income
$3,000 Seattle Street Improvement bonds $240
$4,000 Los Angeles Assessment bonds . 320
$2,000 Mtge. on store in Lewiston, Ida. . 200
$2,000 First mtge. on a farm in Arkansas 180
$2,500 Mortgage on a store in Florida . 200
$1,000 Montana Irrigation Co. bond . . 75
$ 500 Cash in a banking-by-mail bank . 20
Total $1,235
The Seattle bonds were bought this year;
the Los Angeles bonds last year. The Florida
mortgage is a renewal of half a mortgage made
five years ago.
"How did you happen to get a collection
like this?" asked the salesman.
"One of my boys is the cashier of a bank
in the West," he said, "and another is an
editor. Joe picks out my investments for me
to get the big income; but I never buy unless
they both recommend it."
"Joe" is the Western cashier. He has
persuaded the old man that 8 per cent on a
mortgage or a bond in the Western country is
as safe as 5 per cent, on a New York bond
or mortgage. That is a well-fixed idea in the
country where Joe works. It is not at all
certain that, for all practical purposes, he is
not right.
The salesman, who told me this story,
referred to the investment as "a lot of junk."
He tried to show the old man the trouble that
he had bought into. He drew a picture of
what would happen if the farmer down in
Arkansas failed to pay the interest, and if the
investor had to hire a lawyer, at long range, to
collect that $180. He proved, to his own
satisfaction, that 5 per cent, with certainty is
better than 9 per cent, with possibilities of
having to go after it with a sheriff. The reply
was conclusive enough:
"I know that farm; and if I ever get a
chance to get hold of it for $2,000 I'll take it
quick enough!"
This story is told to illustrate the fact that
there are some people in this country who
think they can get 8 per cent, or more on their
investments, as a steady income. Most of
these people, however, are located west of the
Missouri River, or south of it.
Now, it is natural to ask how far this method
of buying is safe for the average man. If it
is really sound, it ought to spread. If it is
unsound, it is a good thing to find that out.
In general practice, it would lead to steady
losses. To buy without discrimination —
either assessment bonds from Western citiea,
Digitized by V^OOQlC
12436
EIGHT PER CENT. ON YOUR MONEY
or improved real-estate mortgages in border
towns, or farm mortgages in the backward
states — would be the height of foolishness.
There are many farm mortgages that are
little better than a gamble on next year's crop,
and many mortgages on stores are the purest
gambles. Under certain conditions, a mort-
gage of this sort is merely a lien on good luck
or bad luck. The mortgage may be per-
fectiy good this year; and next year the store-
keeper may go into bankruptcy or the value of
his store may shrink wonderfully on account
of some very simple development in the way of
competition.
As to assessment bonds on street improve-
ments, they may be either very good or very
bad. If they are put out to finance a street
improvement plan in a "booming" suburb,
they are as likely as not to prove worthless in
the long run. If, on the contrary, they repre-
sent work on a business street in a solid city,
they are perfectiy good — but they seldom
yield 8 per cent., even in Los Angeles and
Seattle.
Irrigation bonds — so popular just now —
are perfectly good if they are good at all.
Their goodness or their badness depends on a
multitude of factors. The personal honesty
of the promoters and the bankers is a big
factor. The excellence of the engineering
estimates is another big factor. But the
biggest of all is the business risk — the question
whether or not, when all the work is done, the
lands will be salable and the water rights a
commercial asset. That depends on many
things — the amount of competition, the busi-
ness conditions of the country at the time, the
general demand for lands of this sort. An
irrigated tract, however excellent, will pay
no dividends until it is sold and settled.
To buy any one of these classes of securities
without the greatest care will lead a man into
trouble sooner or later. The words "mort-
gage," "real estate," "bond," and "munic-
ipal" may be little more than lures to draw
a man onward. In their first meaning they
stand for everything that is solid, honest, clean,
and respectable in the investment world. Yet
each of them has been stretched to cover the
outright gambling chance.
There are men, however, who are quite
right to buy such securities as are held by the
retired farmer up-state. They are men with
special information at their hands, men whose
positions entitle them to take a certain business
risk with their money, or men whose busi-
ness connections enable them to utilize special
knowledge that the investors do not them-
selves possess. These classes include many
thousands of men all over this country. They
even include a few — but a very few — women.
They do not include any trustees or custodians
of other people's money.
The selection of such investments is a
science in itself. It has not been brought to
perfection in Wall Street — nor, indeed, in
any of the Eastern business sections. The
Wall Street banker of the better class will not
undertake to find for any one an 8 per cent,
investment, even if the intending buyer makes
it clear that the purchase is to be considered
a business risk, rather than a true conservative
investment. In his letter of reply, the chances
are that the banker will incorporate the two
words "gamble" and "wild-cat," and the
chances are that he will go further and intimate
that the man who looks for 8 per cent, is a
good bit of a fool.
The World's Work shares most of the
opinions of the Wall Street bankers on this
point; but it will not go so far as to say that
all 8 per cent, investments are unsound. A
man who has a large sum of money to invest
can go to various parts of this country and
invest it at 8 per cent, with almost perfect
safety, provided he does not want it in such
form that it can be reacjily converted again
into cash. The man with a small sum of
money to invest cannot do it.
The best thing he can do, if he has to get
such a high return on his money, is to trust to
the guidance of some old, well-established,
reputable banking house, either East or West.
If he finds a dealer who has placed high interest
mortgages for many years and who can prove
that none of those he has selected have ever
defaulted, that is good enough. If he finds a
reputable dealer in municipals who will tell
him just what underlies the assessment
bonds of any city, and who will risk his
reputation on them, that, too, is a fairly good
recommendation.
If irrigation bonds are offered to him by
people of national reputation, and they tell him,
succinctly, that they themselves know what they
say to be true, and that they themselves are pre-
pared to take an active part in the manage-
ment of the affair and see to it that it is con-
ducted on a business basis, most of the elements
of danger are eliminated. C. M. K.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
HOW MUCH INSURANCE SHOULD I
CARRY?
NEARLY all life insurance is secured in
a haphazard manner. The average
insurer does not arrange for his life-
insurance protection upon the definite basis
with which he secures fire insurance or the
other commodities of his business or family life.
When a man seeks protection against fire loss,
he wishes to reimburse himself for a definite
sum in case his home or stock of goods should
be burned. This definite loss is ascertained
by valuing the merchandise to be insured.
He knows what his home is worth: it has
cost a tangible, ascertainable sum; when he
seeks fire insurance to reimburse him in case
of loss, therefore, it is the actual money value
of the property which he wishes to cover.
Life insurance should be secured upon the
same basis. Every healthy man with a family
is worth a definite sum to his family; the
amount is the exact measure of the income
which he provides for their maintenance.
While his value to the family cannot be
measured with the same degree of exactness
with which a piece of property may beappraised,
a certain sum is ascertainable, and this sum
can be insured as definitely as can the home or
the business merchandise.
Let us assume that the head of a family has
an income of $1,500 a year. For personal
expenses and his share of the family expenses,
let us suppose that he uses $600 annually.
This leaves $900 per year that his family
receives through his income, and it is his
insurable value to his family. Thus it is seen
that if the head of the family dies without
insurance, his family is deprived of its income
and there is an exact loss, each year, oi the
above definitely stated sum.
The man seeking insurance may now ask:
"How am I to know just how much insur-
ance I should carry to give my family yearly
the exact sum they will need, the sum that I
will provide should I live?"
This is ascertained by the mortality tables
of the insurance companies. By "The Ameri-
can Experience Table of Mortality," the
expectancy of the average life is ascertained.
By this table, of a certain number living at
a specified age a given number will be alive
at the end of a specified number of years.
For instance: at age 25, the expectancy is
thirty-nine years; at age 35, it is thirty-two
years.
Let us assume that a man is thirty years of
age, and wishes to insure to his family $900
yearly in case of his death. He must leave
them a sum in cash which, at interest, may be
drawn upon annually for thirty-five years for
the $900 needed. Computation shows that
$16,798, placed in bank at 4 per cent, inter-
est, will yield just $900 per year for thirty-five
years; consequently, $16,798 is the amount of
insurance that should be carried by a man
thirty years old, whose family will need $900
a year should he die%
The following table gives the expectancy
of life at each age from twenty-five to sixty,
and the present insurable value of a life pro-
ducing an income of $1,000 per annum over
personal expenses. If the net income is less
or more than $1,000, the insurable value is
for a proportionate amount:
Age
Expec-
Insurable
Age
Expec-
Insurable
tation
Value
tation
Value
25
39
$19,584
43
26
$15,982
26
38
19,687
44
25
15,622
27
37
19,142
45
25
15,622
28
37
19,142
46
24
15,247
29
36
18,908
47
23
14,856
30
35
18,664
48
22
14,451
31
35
18,664
49
22
14,451
32
34
18,411
5o
21
14,029
33
33
18,147
5i
20
13,590
34.
33
18,147
52
19
13,134
35
32
17,873
53
19
13,134
36
3i
17,588
54
18
12,659
37
30
17,292
55
17
12,165
38
30
17,292
56
17
12,165
39
29
16,983
57
16
11,652
40
28
16,663
58
15
Il,ll8
4i
27
16,392
59
15
11,118
42
22
16,392
60
14
10,563
Many men are not fully insured because they
do not give as much thought to the cash out-
lay for a policy as they do to the face value of
Digitized by V^OOQlC
12438
THE WAY TO HEALTH
the policy. Young men think it out of their
power to secure $5,000 or $10,000 worth of
protection because the amount seems so large.
The sum needed annually to pay for $5,000 is
$100; or, looked upon as a weekly saving, $2.
When the man aged thirty learns that he
should carry $16,798 of life insurance, his
first question is: "Can I pay for that much?"
The premium in a number of the leading com-
panies for this amount is about $383, or $7.50
per week. This premium becomes smaller
year by year if the dividends are withdrawn
in cash. Whether a man take more or less
than the above table suggests, it at least gives
him a standard by which to judge, which most
men have been without
THE WAY TO HEALTH
The average man's working efficiency might be increased fifty per cent. The development of
vitality is the keynote of the new world-wide movement for health. Its aim is to increase the power to
live and work, rather than merely to cure or even to prevent disease. As a part of this movement,
The World's Work will publish from month to month the experiences of individuals in their
search for health and power.
Dr. Luther H. Gulick, author of "The Efficient Life" and of "Mind and Work," will select
important and typical experiences from correspondence coming to him and will suggest constructive
measures for more efficient living. Those desiring such suggestions should write fully to The
World's Work about their personal habits — hours of work, sleep, recreation, eating, clothing,
temperament, and health experiences. Particular attention will be paid to communications in regard
to children, and from those who feel that their power is beginning to wane through old age or from
overwork.
THE PACE OF BUSINESS MEN
BY
DR. LUTHER HALSEY GULICK
I DO not believe that modern business and
professional men are working under such
a pressure and at such a pace as neces-
sarily to shorten their lives. While there is
greater draft on the powers and vitality
of men to-day, there is also increased ability
to meet it.
The modern attitude toward the well-being
and up-keep of the human machine may fairly
be likened to the present-day attitude of great
corporations toward their mechanical depart-
ments. Looking back fifty years into the early
days of railroading, for instance, one sees an
appalling disregard of the chief principles of
economical management. Locomotives were
allowed to rust away in the open air. When
not in use they were drawn upon sidings, and
comparatively little attention was paid to clean-
ing and oiling them. Repairs were made only
when absolutely necessary.
Recently, however, there has developed an
idea that the highest degree of railroad effi-
ciency demands an everlasting oversight. Re-
pairs must be made even before they become
necessary. Bearings must be kept clean always.
The best grade of oil means the highest service
and the longest life for these bearings. Groomed
like fine race-horses, the locomotives go forth
for their daily trips at a speed that would have
been the death of their ancient brothers.
The same improvement in the methods of
the up-keep department of the human machine
may be noted. It is true that scarcely a day
goes by but what we read of men who have
dropped from the ranks with shattered nerves.
This is usually ascribed to overwork. We
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THE WAY TO HEALTH
"439
frequently hear of men who in despondency
take their lives, and there is a constantly
increasing percentage of the population in
insane asylums. The sanitariums for the
broken down are multiplying. I know also
that many business men are going "the pace
that kills," and the way they live accounts for
the fact that their children have not inherited
their vitality and power to work.
It is also undeniably true that no period of
the world has seen so many men working so
bard and so continuously at work which is so
engrossing and which more and more, par-
ticularly for the world's leaders, involves less
• and less of muscular exercise, less of outdoor
life and fresh air, and yearly more pressure
upon the mind and the emotions.
But along with this increase has come an
increasing appreciation of the need for an
expert up-keep department. The human
locomotive to-day moves along the rails of
time at a speed which frightens those who
see only the speed. The morbid, pessimistic
phrase, "the pace that kills," has been seized
upon by them as descriptive of the modern
business life. That men do break down under
the strain of their business activities is true,
but when such breakdown occurs before the
human machine has run its allotted time, the
fault may usually be found in the up-keep
department.
And yet there are many men who seriously
overwork, even among those who lead otherwise
well-ordered lives. This conviction has come
to. me through the daily observation of American
men of affairs who carry large responsibilities
successfully and without detriment to their
health year after year, whose children are
vigorous and have no less vitality than their
parents. It is not my purpose in this article to
defend the faith that is in me, so much as it is
to account for what I believe to be the fact and
at the same time to indicate the main lines of
development which generally distinguish the
men who succeed from those who fail, in living
wholesomely and carrying on their work.
How, then, does it come about that the great
mass of business men are able to work harder
than they have ever worked before?
II
The modern pace in business and pro-
fessional life is made by two things: increase
of opportunity and increase ot vitality. News-
papers bring to us the news and opportunities
of the world, the achievements in scholarship
as well as in business. The postal system and
the telegraph, the stenographer and the tele-
phone enable us to do business with a speed
which was unknown to our grandparents. To
telephone a business transaction eliminates the
time involved in going to see the man, although
it does n©t lessen the thinking involved. It
is another case of shortening up the mechanical
side of the process without shortening up the
mental expenditure. The fact that men are
living and working closer together also increases
the opportunity for rapidity of social relations.
A little more than a hundred years ago, only
about 4 per cent, of us here in America lived
in cities. Now something" over 30 per cent, of
us live in cities; and if we take the more setded
Eastern states, the figure runs up to some-
thing like 60 per cent Modern facilities of
transportation open markets far from the
sources of supply and hence permit the build-
ing up of big businesses in a way that is
relatively new.
The comparatively small amount of business
which our grandfathers could do in a day could
not have been increased much by merely
increasing the speed with which they worked.
They did not have the mechanical facilities
for greatly increasing the output of their work.
Ill
Opportunity alone, however, would not
increase a man's working power, and I am
inclined to believe that our forefathers worked
as hard in proportion to their ability as we
work in proportion to ours. I believe that
we have a far greater working power than our
forefathers had, for our bodily machines are
better taken care of. Up to recent times,
the great bulk of human vitality and life was
poured out in unnecessary disease, and the
lives of most of the people of the world have,
during all the centuries of human existence,
been either lost or enfeebled by diseases which
are now largely conquered.
In the single year of 1348 the bubonic
plague attacked almost every town and village
in England. Smallpox up to a century ago
was responsible for the death of one-tenth of
the population of the globe. Since 1793,
in New Orleans alone, there have been 41,348
deaths due to yellow fever. In large areas of
northern Michigan to-day, there are swampy
areas where the malaria-carrying mosquito
lives and breeds, with the result that physicians
1244°
THE WAY TO HEALTH
there say that the efficiency of most of the men
and women is not over 50 per cent, of normal
because of the malarial poison with which
they are infected. Yet any community can
now be rid of all malarial diseases and thus
vastly increase its power to live and to work.
One of the most brilliant wars that human
kind has ever been engaged in is that against
tuberculosis, which now is responsible for the
death of about one out of eleven of the total
population and of more than one- third of all
who die between the years of fifteen and thirty-
five. It also saps vitality and reduces the
level upon which people live.
We now know that tuberculosis in its early
stages is curable and* that it is entirely prevent-
able with the measures already at hand.
Those who have studied the subject most tell
us that people now living will see the day when
it will be as difficult to find cases of tuberculosis
for study by medical students as to-day it is
difficult to find cases of smallpox.
We do not forget, however, that pneumonia
is increasing, one out of ten of all deaths
in the United States being due to it. Cere-
brospinal meningitis is increasing. Cancer,
syphilis, and diseases of the heart, arteries, and
kidneys are increasing. But the great fact
remains that the causes which have been
responsible for the death of most of the people
during most of the ages of the world are now
removed from the civilized world, and all the
vitality which was spent by these diseases is
available in the prolongation of human life and
in the increase of its breadth, power, and
vividness.
This, then, is the first great reason why we
have more vitality than the people of the world
have ever had before. Our human engines
are kept out of the repair-shop by the efficiency
of the up-keep department and the full power
is more readily available. We are now able
to use our vitality for living instead of spending
it in disease.
It is but four centuries since the average
length of life in Europe was but twenty years;
so many persons died in infancy and youth
that the average length of human life was
reduced to one score. To-day the average
length of life here in America is forty-four for
men and forty-six for women. In Sweden the
duration of human life is now fifty for men
and fifty-two for women. In four hundred
years we have more than doubled the average
length of life.
This, however, is not all of the story. We are
using the increased vitality far more wisely and
conservatively. We are expending the precious
coin of life more judiciously. We are playing
our game of high vital finance with closer regard
for its rules than has ever before been done.
IV
In these days we are in the habit of railing at
foolish disregard of the laws of health. When
a city has an epidemic of typhoid fever due to
the contamination of its water supply, the
whole country is shocked at the terrible dis-
regard by that community of its water supply.
But this very railing at the disregard of health
laws by the community is a new thing. It
implies a new standard of living. When some
prominent person dies there is likely to be
considerable discussion as to the care of his
health, and if he is taken away in middle life
we are likely to say that it was due to some
violation of the well-known laws of health.
This, too, implies new standards and a new
attitude toward personal health.
It is no longer the fashion to be proud of
semi-invalidism and to discuss symptoms with
one's friends. The time when the clinging
invalid was the type of the refined woman has
passed, and such a one now is obliged to
apologize for her inability. The public inter-
est in the subject of health is nowhere better
indicated than on the advertising pages of the
periodical press. Sometimes as much as 20
per cent, of the advertisements in a magazine
is given to these topics. We find health foods,
breakfast foods, brain foods, foods easy of
digestion, and foods for children exploited
with all the skill of the modern publicity man.
This new interest is shown also in the
reading matter. In a recent examination of
a dozen of the most popular magazines pub-
lished in a single month, I found fourteen
articles which related directly to the con-
servation of personal health in one form or
another. This is the response of the editors
to public demand.
Popular books on health have a vogue which
they never have had before. Would it have
been possible twenty-five years ago to arouse
such a general interest in the chewing of food
as has been aroused by Mr. Fletcher? He has
succeeded in adding a word to the English
vocabulary. It is not merely that he has an
attractive mannej of presentation; the public
was ready to be interested in things of this kind.
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THE WAY TO HEALTH
1 2441
Heavy, regular drinking is not so common
among professional and business men as it
was a century ago, and the man who drinks
heavily is now censured. The prohibitions
which hedge about railroad men in their use of
alcohol are detailed and rigorous, for it is now
known that the man who drinks is more likely
to be untrustworthy at times than the man who
does not. This is also true of police and
firemen.
Then, again, exercise is generally recognized
by our business and professional men as an
important agent in the up-keep department.
I do not mean that they all take the exercise
which they know is advantageous, but there
is a general conviction that a man who does
take exercise is better off than one who does
not. Hence the extensive sale of dumb-bells,
Indian clubs, chest-weights and various other
athletic paraphernalia, and the enormous
growth in outdoor activities for adults.
Hunting is pursued as a sport as it never
has been. I have never yet been up the Hud-
son River, winter or summer, daytime or night,
that I have not see men fishing from pier or
bank. I cannot imagine that it is any eco-
nomic need which drives these men to fishing or
that it is any extensive expectation that they
will really succeed in catching fish which will
be worth while. I have, indeed, seen fish
caught large enough to eat, but most of them
are so small as to require careful scrutiny to
distinguish between bait and fish. Most of
them, however, never catch anything, but it
is out-of-doors. The tremendous develop-
ment in golf is another indication. The
enormous development in the use of auto-
mobiles, motor boats, and the like, also adds
to the extent of this movement.
There is a general recognition of the need
of vacations, and employers provide them for
their employees in a way that is entirely new
in business. It is a common and a new cus-
tom for business men to take week-end vaca-
tions. The hours of business are decidedly
shorter than they were a hundred years, or
even a generation, ago. There are hundreds
of thousands of men who are working on the
eight-hour day.
The fresh-air movement which has gone
on coincidently with our fight against tuber-
culosis has an important place in the main-
tenance department of life's transit system.
Thousands of houses are being built with
porches suitably screened so that people may
sleep on them. Not merely those who have
tuberculosis use these, but people in gpqd.
health find outdoor sleeping beneficial. It
has been discovered that fresh air helps to
make life more vivid and more real.
Nowhere, perhaps, is the difference between
the old and new in public sentiment more
evident than in the changed attitude of the
colleges toward matters of health. The pale,
thin-chested scholar of the past has largely
disappeared. He exists no longer, even as
an ideal. We find in the cartoons representing
college life, which so often faithfully reflect
public opinion and practice, the college student
represented as erect, vigorous, and wholesome.
The college man or woman is expected to have
good circulation, good digestion, good sleep, and
to observe reasonable hours of work and exer-
cise. His life is a far more balanced human
life than the lives of students have ever been.
It is not alone the physical aspects of health
in which we observe progress of better opinion
and intelligence, but already on important
matters of mental hygiene a large portion of
the community has come to believe that
certain mental states are to be more or less
deliberately controlled. Many so-called "new
movements" have aided in this so-called "new
thought" mental healing. Christian Science,
"don't worry" clubs, and the like have dis-
seminated the information that mental and
emotional states are directly related to health.
The habit of cheerfulness is now generally
regarded as associated with the habit of health.
Of equal significance are those matters
which refer to the hygiene of the city. We
are inclined now to classify cities, among other
things, according to their care of streets. We
provide sewerage systems by which the city
may keep itself clean. Public baths are
becoming common. New York City alone
last year spent about $400,000 in this one
direction. We insist that the water-supply
for our cities shall not only be clean to look at,
but that it shall be free from the germs of
disease; and we spend countless thousands of
dollars in seeing that this shall be brought about.
We are also taking care of our school chil-
dren. The public information is reaching the
point where we insist that the schoolroom shall
be well lighted and clean, and it is becoming
clear to American communities that to spend
the money of the city in trying to teach a child
to read who cannot see the printed page well
enough to distinguish the letters is foolishness.
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1344*
THE WAY TO HEALTH
More and more physicians are being asked
for counsel with reference to living. I like
to call this "biological engineering" or "con-
structive medicine.,, People go to the physi-
cian not merely to be cured of their diseases,
not merely to be shown how they may avoid
disease, but — more important often than
either of these — to discover how they may
so order their lives as to get the most out of
modern conditions. Each man presents a
different problem. I once knew of a man
whose duties involved taking his sleep at
irregular intervals. This was a case where he
should have put the whole matter in detail
before some wise physician who would have
shown the man how to make the best of his
difficulties. He would have shown him how
to live in his own particular environment so
as to get the most out of the game. It is the
function 6i the physician from this standpoint
to show each individual, with a specific study
of his own personal characteristics and all the
necessary complications in which he lives,
how to live most effectively. The physician
does not raise impossible standards. This is
a new function for the medical profession
which the public is only just beginning to
appreciate.
We have done two great things. We have
vastly increased our store of vitality and we
are learning more wisely to expend the vitality
that we have. We must no longer think, then,
of our modern pace as "the pace that kills.,,
We must think of it, rather, as the pace that
arrives. It brings success, and success is the
greatest tonic in the world. Success makes
fife vivid. The pain we have in the striving
disappears in the pleasure of victory. Success
is already a victory that can only be won
legitimately — or won in accordance with the
rules of the game.
There is a tendency among some with a
superficial view to contend that the modern
health movement is taking up too much valu-
able time and energy. Health and hygiene,
they say, are becoming objects in life. This
is no more true than that up-keep of equipment
is the object, in itself, of a railroad.
This vivid pace of modern life can only be
carried on successfully by most of us during
the years of a long life by a rigid observance
of Ae laws of life. The faster and more
intense the life, the more exact must be the
observance of its laws. The price of freedom
is intelligent obedience.
Take, for example, such men as Weston,
the pedestrian, who at the age of seventy is
still able to maintain across the continent a
pace which would kill any thoroughbred horse;
the pugilist, "Bob" Fitzsimmons, who for
nearly thirty years has been contending in the
prize ring, is now preparing to contest for the
championship of Australia; and the bicycle
racer, "Nat" Butler, who has been for the last
quarter of a century subjected to the tremen-
dous strain of the race track, has contended
in dozens of six-day races and at present, an
old bald-headed man, is still one of the fastest
men in the world.
To these men and to others like them, keep-
ing always in fine physical condition has
become not an incident but a fixed habit.
When I see splendid careers, like those
of Dr. Eliot, E. H, Harriman, Russell Sage,
J. P. Morgan, Judson Harmon, Grover
Cleveland, William M. Laffan, John Mar-
shall Harlan, Nelson A. Miles, Theodore
Roosevelt, and President Taft, I see vic-
torious athletes who have kept the pace by
obeying the laws.
The men who have fallen from their places
of leadership just when the world most needed
them and when they themselves had accumu-
lated that experience and wisdom which
qualified them for attainment far in advance
of their accomplishment, have fallen because
they did not play by the rules. The most
interesting and richest part of life should be
its years of old age, with the retention of vivid
mental power, and behind them long years of
successful experience. The supreme joy of
seeing things done, achieved, completed, is
theirs. The man who dies in his forties or
fifties dies in the midst of the battle and before
the hour of triumph.
The conclusion of it all is: play as hard as
you like, but play by the rules — stay to the end
of the game, take share in its sure victory and
the plaudits of friends and public. Violate
the rules and you will be out of the running and
put off the track by the Great Umpire. To
be obliged then to live on for years watching
the great game, but physically unable to take
part in it, is tragedy. It is like being taken
prisoner by the enemy and being compelled
impotently to watch the game on which one's
all is staked. Go to the expert to learn the
rules, and then play by them.
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OUR DEBT TO DR. WILEY
A PUBLIC SERVANT WHO IS A HARD FIGHTER FOR PURE
FOOD AND IS GENERALLY ON THE WINNING SIDE
BY
EDWIN BJORKMAN
WHEN Dr. H. W. Wiley entered the
Bureau of Chemistry of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture as its official
head, twenty-six years ago, he had four assist-
ants and a dish-washer, and they did their work
in the cellar of the Agricultural Building. Now
he has a staff of about 350, about 200 of them
being chemists, and his laboratories are a credit
to the Department. This long step in advance
is in many respects the measure of the man.
Dr. Wiley is built on large lines. He is
tall and massive of stature, with a big head
firmly poised above a pair of titanic shoulders.
His hair never stays in order, but masses itself
forward on both sides of the forehead, giving
him at times a somewhat uncouth appearance.
The penetrating glance of his rather small
eyes, the large and roughly modeled nose, and
the severe lines of his mouth add to this
impression.
As you watch him and listen to him, you are
soon made to forget all surface appearances.
The one thing that you feel more than any-
thing else in his presence is the marvelous
strength that dwells in him — but this strength
is not of the kind that flares up a moment and
is gone. You have before you a man who may
master anything but tHe meaning of defeat.
He has never acknowledged himself beaten
nor given up a purpose once conceived. He
is an able, level-headed man of common sense,
who knows the world around him and the
peculiarities of its inhabitants exceedingly
well. He has never hesitated to reach out for
whatever authority he deemed needful to his
„ work. But he has never reached out for any-
thing that was not essential to that work, and
to this day he has remained a poor man.
Devotion to his work is another keynote of
his character. Too much has been said about
his qualities as a fighter — although there are
few who surpass him in the zest and skill with
which he gives battle. But first of all he must
be classed as a worker — a man who loves
his work for its own sake and for the sake of
the results that it may bring. When he is
found up to his ears in a fight — as he is most
of the time — you may be sure that somebody
has been trying to interfere with his work.
He hates all humbug and falsehood and
deceit on their own account — he hates them
with a hatred that never gives truce — but his
attitude is never wholly negative. As behooves
a man fully aware of life's limitations, he has '
carefully laid down a road for himself, and '
that road he follows undeviatingly, in order \
that he may gather to himself as much as
possible of the truth pertaining to it.
This may strike the reader as the image of
a very stern and cold man — a man with some
virtues and no graces and so preoccupied with
duty that he has not even time to fall in love.
Such a conception of Dr. Wiley would be
utterly false. One of the dominant notes in
his mental make-up is an ever out-flowing
humaneness and a deep love for his fellow-
beings, both as individuals and as a race.
Though his feelings rarely find tangible outlet
in his speech, they color all his actions. While
he has always been ready to incur enmity
when higher considerations made this neces-
sary, he has been much more ready to make
friends; and where you find one man hating
him, you will find ten willing to go through fire
for him. His 'relations to his subordinates
have been unusually happy in spite of the strict
discipline which he knows how to maintain
without harshness. To them he is and will
always be "Old Borax," that being the sub-
stance which he administered daily for months
"to his first nauseated but faithful "poison
squad." By most of his colleagues in the other
branches of the service he is sincerely respected
and much liked. And if he have enemies
there, this may be explained by circumstances
not at all derogatory to himself. Among his
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12444
OUR DEBT TO DR. WILEY
fellow-scientists he is looked up to and trusted,
both for his personal qualities and for his
scientific achievements.
Nor can he be called indifferent to life's
gentler and more graceful aspects. His work
is and will always be his main source of amuse-
ment, but he finds time for other things as well.
Beauty in all its forms has a compelling power'
over him, and in particular he loves poetry
and music. Every musical event of some
importance finds him unfailingly in his favorite
seat, provided he does not happen to have
some serious investigation on his hands. He
is also a poet in the lighter vein. For all his
earnestness, his sense of humor is very vivid,
and it goes beyond mere appreciation. For
years he has been known as an after-dinner
speaker of more than common cleverness, but
back of his witty jests lies as a rule some grave
truth. He is an insatiable reader and follows
carefully every new movement in the world of
thought or action.
Much of the animosity shown against him
in some quarters — official as well as unofficial
— and much of the misunderstanding to which
he has been exposed may be traced to his scorn
for all deviousness and useless conventionalities.
At times his directness may even appear as
rudeness to one not knowing him well. He
has no desire to offend and he can be as diplo-
matic as anybody when occasion requires it.
But when he has to do with persons who ought
to understand, or when he feels that the truth
is more needed than anything else, he is apt
to throw diplomacy to the winds. More than
once he has shown that he is not a man who
cringes or compromises "for fear of his job,"
and at times this independence has undoubt-
edly stood in his way. All Washington is
familiar with an incident that occurred some
time before the selection of the Referee Board
appointed to act as a final court of appeals
on pure-food decisions. He was talking to
President Roosevelt one day, when saccharin
happened to be mentioned, and the President
scorned the idea of its harmfulness. With
customary directness, Dr. Wiley expressed
his opinion of that substance — an opinion
that he vented on another occasion in the
following terms:
" The word ' saccharin ' itself is a deception,
and the person who invented it meant it to
deceive. Saccharin has been a fraud from its
inception. It is a fraud to-day, and it will be
so until it is labeled exactly what it is."
While the old adjective "saccharin" has
always meant "of, pertaining to, or possessing
the qualities of sugar," the chemical substance
for which the name of "saccharin" was devised
has nothing whatever to do with sugar. It is
derived from coal-tar and should be named
"benzoic sulphinide," or something as for-
bidding, in accordance with the generally
accepted nomenclature. All this and more
Dr. Wiley told the President, who finally lost
his temper and pulled a small bottle of saccharin
tablets from his pocket. This he shook under
the Chief Chemist's nose and said :
"My physician has been giving me sac-
charin for years, and anybody who says that
it is dangerous is an ididt"
Not long afterward the Referee Board was
appointed, with Professor Ira Remsen, the
inventor of saccharin, at its head. Everybody
took this as a direct slap at Dr. Wiley. When
I mentioned the matter to him, he said that the
incident was true as related, but added:
"Nevertheless, Mr. Roosevelt stood by me
when they tried to get me out of office."
Unlike most successful men, Dr. Wiley has
never been an opportunist. All that he has
accomplished has been planned years in
advance. Through a period long enough to
wear out most men's patience, he pursued
unflinchingly his aims without any support
of public opinion and unknown to all but a
small circle of experts. It was only about
seven years ago that his name began to appear
in print with growing frequency and under
circumstances that compelled widespread atten-
tion. This happened when he inaugurated
his now world-famed experiments on living
human beings, with the object of learning
just what effects chemical preservatives have
on our digestion. The picture of that little
"poison squad" at Washington swallowing-
its daily doses of borax caught first the fancy
of the press and then that of the public. In a
few months a single sensational venture did
what twenty-three preceding years of laborious
and helpful toil had failed to accomplish.
From that moment Dr. Wiley became to the
people the pioneer, the first man in a new field.
A striking contrast to the many groundless
slurs upon his scientific standing and proper
qualification for his allotted task is furnished
by what the leaders of European thought and
research think of him. Expressions of con-
fidence, of approval, of admiration, have come
to him from all over the world. Many honors
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"445
have been bestowed upon him by learned
societies. Foreign governments have con-
sulted him and decorated him for the services
he rendered them, A still greater compliment
may be seen in the. decision of the French
Government to reproduce the entire system of
food inspection and of laboratory work estab-
lished by Dr. Wiley in this country.
Perhaps the best proof that he knows what
he is talking about may be drawn from the
story of how he made his way to the advanced
position he occupies to-day — the story of how
a poor country lad, with nothing to favor or
help him but his own natural gifts, overcame
obstacles serious enough to scare back all but
the most courageous.
He was born on an Indiana farm under
circumstances that gave slight promise of his
ever getting away from it except to take up a
still harder and more precarious life in some
city. But from the time the boy was able to
think, his mind was set on studying, and study
he did between chores — now at home and
now again under such guidance as the usual
country school could offer him. He was a
tall, bony, underfed youngster of nineteen when
he succeeded at last in getting into Hanover
College. Once a week he walked out to the
farm, returning with the next week's food
supply on his back. For four years he had to
live exclusively on cornmeal mush, boiled
potatoes, bread, and sorghum molasses. And
maybe his often expressed impatience with the
advocates of an excessively low proteid diet can
be traced to those early days of scarcely satis-
fied hunger. His sole cash expense in all that
time at his first college consisted of fifty cents
a week for a room. He never owned an over-
coat Yet he never thought of whining or
pitying himself. From first to last he led his
class both in studies and in athletics. When he
graduated, he was considered one of the best
Latin and Greek scholars that the college had
ever turned out.
His desire then was to become a physician,
which implied studying of a sort that could
only be had for cash. What he needed he
raised by tutoring, and for several years he
taught and studied simultaneously at what is
now Butler College, Indianapolis. When,
in 1871, he received his M. D. degree, he had
saved up enough to enable him to go on to
Harvard University for a special course, his
main subject being chemistry. There he
studied under Agassiz, Peacock, and Asa Gray,
carrying off a degree of B. S. in 1873. Right on
its heels followed a call to fill the chair of chem-
istry at Butler College, and a year later his
services in the same capacity were demanded
by the Agricultural College of Indiana, which
was then being reorganized into Purdue
University. His habits were as rigorously
simple as when he was a mere college boy, and
once more he managed to save enough out of
his meagre income to provide a long-cherished
trip to Europe. There he resumed his study
of chemistry, physiology, and pathology at the
Berlin University under such renowned instruc-
tors as Virchow, von Helmholtz, and Hoffman.
It was then that his attention first became
directed toward the adulteration of food, and
as the information he needed was not to be
had at the University, he engaged in special
studies on the outside under the direction of the
head of the Berlin Board of Health, Dr. Zell.
On his return to Purdue, in 1879, he knew
what he wanted to do, and ever since he has
faithfully followed the route that he mapped
out for himself at that early stage of his career.
Thirty years ago, Dr. Wiley made up his mind
about three things: (1) that one of the most
serious menaces to the welfare of this nation
was the steadily increasing adulteration of its
food products; (2) that the interests profit-
ing by such abuses were powerful enough to
make the fight against them an uncommonly
hard and hazardous proposition; and, (3)
that this fight was what he cared to under-
take more than anything else in this world.
Nor did he waste any time dreaming about what
he wanted to do. He took the first step right
then and there; and as the result of a suggestion
made to the Indiana State Board of Health, he
received a grant of $50 for an investigation of
the molasses put on the market in that state.
His report appeared in 1881, under the tide
of "The Adulteration of Syrups in Indiana."
In a fortunate moment Dr. Wiley con-
ceived the idea of turning temporarily from
food for man to food for the soil. At once he
got the full support of the farmers, who were
already complaining bitterly about the kind
of stuff palmed off on them under the name
and guise of fertilizers. Dr. Wiley was made
State Chemist, and entrusted with the special
duty of examining and certifying all com-
mercial fertilizers marketed within the state.
At the same time the sale of fertilizers not
certified by him was rendered illegal. Thus
he got his chance to do what he really wanted;
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OUR DEBT TO DR. WILEY
for while he kept his eyes open to the imme-
diate grievance of the farmers, he began an
investigation of the glucose and sorghum
industries. And so successful was the work
that he did in this line that in 1883 ^e was
called to Washington as head of what was
then the Division, and is now the Bureau, of
Chemistry. He has now held that same posi-
tion for twenty-six years, preferring it to all
others, although his salary for a long time
remained ridiculously inadequate for a man
in such a responsible position.
Since his appointment in 1883, not a year
has gone by when Dr. Wiley has not given
much time and labor to the study of some
phase of the general question of food adul-
teration. And during those years few, if any,
factors have been more potent in arousing and
instructing public opinion on that question
than the contributions resulting from his
investigations. To give him all the credit for
what. has been achieved so far would be far
from just. Other able and determined men
have been at work in every part of the country.
In fact, up to a certain time much more was
done by the various states than by the Federal
Government toward putting an actual stop
to adulteration and misrepresentation. And
when, at last, the Pure Fcixl and Drugs Act
was forced upon Congress in 1906, the pres-
sure producing that result came largely from
the colleagues of Dr. Wiley, at work in state
food departments and health boards and
laboratories. But from first to last the entire
agitation seemed to centre in him, and from
him and his work it received its prinoipal
impetus. So much was this the case that one
of the delegates to the Pure Food Congress
at St. Louis, in 1904, declared that he had come
mainly to hear the Chief Government Chemist
speak, because, when he corresponded with
the various state officials, they generally
quoted what Dr. Wiley had to say. But
his leadership was not brought home to the
great mass of the people until the series of
"poison squad" experiments began.
In regard to our ideas as to what is fit to be
eaten by human beings and what is fit to be
sold in shops and market-places, we have
moved so rapidly ahead in a few years that we
have almost forgotten the conditions which
prevailed everywhere when Dr. Wiley first
took office, and which largely continued even
after he had begun his experiments. What
they were, Dr. Wiley describes as follows:
"There was universal misbranding, universal
exaggeration of qualities, and universal adul-
teration. Honest manufacturers were forced
by fear of bankruptcy to follow the example
set by the dishonest ones. Strawberry jam,
for instance, was made of glucose, with arti-
ficial coloring, ethereal salt for flavoring, and
a few seeds of hay to imitate the berry seeds.
What was true of foods was also true of bever-
ages and drugs. And the misstatements on the
labels concerned not only the contents but
also the place of manufacture and the identity
of the manufacturer. In those days there
was nothing in the market but 'Maine' canned
corn and 'New York' full-cream cheese. All
whiskey was either 'Maryland Rye* or 'Ken-
tucky Bourbon,' although most of it came from
Peoria, HI., and was made from Indian corn.
At the same time, every conceivable kind of
chemical was added as a preservative."
"And the general result of that state of
affairs?" I asked.
"Why, universal dyspepsia, of course," he
replied. "And also an enormous increase of
kidney diseases. All the preservatives have
a cumulative effect, and ail of them attack
the kidneys — that is, all of them but sul-
phate of copper, which commonly kills before
it has time to get at the kidneys."
Experiments on living human subjects had
been tried in a small way before, but no one
previous to Dr. Wiley had dared to plan them
on such a scale or been able to carry them out
under such strict conditions. The first of the
five groups of experiments began in Decem-
ber, 1902, and the last one came to an end
just two years later. But the tabulation and
analysis of the results obtained occupied nearly
five years more, so that the report on the final
experiment did not appear in print until Decem-
ber, 1908. There had undoubtedly been other,
and wholly unnecessary, causes for the delay
in the publication of the benzoate and for-
maldehyde reports, but with that matter we
are not concerned here.
Twelve young volunteers from among the
clerical force of the Agricultural Department
took part in each of the experiments, and
some of those groups remained under con-
stant observation for months at a stretch.
While an experiment was under way, Dr.
Wiley stayed at his office every day from seven
o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock at night,
in order that he might personally supervise
the feeding and "drugging" of the men. The
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subjects undertook to eat and drink nothing
but what was given them at the Bureau of
Chemistry, where a special dining-room, with
adjoining kitchen, had been prepared for their
use. And as a rule they stuck scrupulously
to their promise. In the beginning it hap-
pened now and then that Dr. Wiley, after look-
ing over the records of the preceding day,
would send for this or that member of the
squad, and ask him:
"What did you eat yesterday that I did not
give you?"
Whereupon the surprised offender would
confess that he had been to a party the night
before, and "just been made to eat a piece of
cake." After the same offense had led to the
same result a few times, the volunteers made
up their minds that "there was no way of
fooling Old Borax." And nothing more
occurred to endanger the reliability of the
experiments. Thus Dr. Wiley was able to
make exact conclusions as to the effect on the
human system of such preservatives as borax,
boracic acid, salicylic acid, salicylates, sul-
phurous acid, sulphites, benzoic acid, ben-
zoates, and formaldehyde.
The general results at which he arrived are
best summed up in his own words to the Pure
Food Congress at St. Louis: "The principle
which seems to come out of my investigations
is this one — add nothing to foods that you
cannot demonstrate to be helpful. The old
cry of 'add anything which is not harmful'
must be held false doctrine." And the opinion
then and many times since expressed by Dr.
Wiley is the opinion held to-day by the greater
number of experts in his own field. Against
him may be quoted the resolution adopted by
the last convention of the Association of State
and National Food and Dairy Departments
in support of the Referee Board's defense of
benzoate of soda. This resolution was rushed
through at the beginning of the convention by
a vote of 57 to 42. The states of Ohio, Mich-
igan, and Pennsylvania, having nine votes
together, declared the whole proceeding illegal,
and refused to vote on that account. They
made it clearly known, however, that they
were against the resolution. The majority of
six votes thus left in favor of the resolution
was furnished by the delegations from the
Department of Agriculture and the District
of Columbia, controlled by Secretary Wilson,
and casting three votes each. It seems, there-
fore, safe to presume that the matter may be
taken up again, and perhaps with a different
result.
But even if there be a division of opinion
among the chemists, there is none whatever
within the medical profession. At its last
annual meeting, the American Medical Asso-
ciation, representing about 200,000 physicians,
resolved with practical unanimity in favor of
Dr. Wiley and against the use of any kind of
preservative in foods. The same stand has
been taken by the American Homeopathic
Institute, with some 25,000 members, and by
several state organizations. Nor is it with-
out some weight that Dr. Wiley's conclusions
have been endorsed on practical grounds by
such organizations as the National Canners*
Association and the National Association of
Master Bakers, or that the leading newspapers
of the country, with very few exceptions, have
spoken and are speaking in his support.
Of course, the fight for and against pure food
is still on; and the way in which the defenders
of preservatives direct their attacks almost
wholly against Dr Wiley serves better than
anything else to show how closely he is identi-
fied with it. But whatever new aspects it may
assume hereafter, the main battle of that fight
was won with the enactment of the Pure Food
and Drugs Act — a victdry that was by no
means traceable to Dr. Wiley alone, but which
was largely made possible through his work,
his many years of relentless agitation, and
especially his experiments on the various
"poison squads." Nor is it likely that the
nation will ever suffer that act to be annulled
or even impaired. What it has already accom-
plished was recendy summarized by Dr. Wiley
as follows: "It has stopped ninety per cent,
of the misbranding; it has put a stop to fifty
per cent, of the drugging of foods; and it has
enabled honest manufacturers to discard what
they knew to be dishonest practices."
Just now the situation is complicated and
confused by the report of the Referee Board
appointed by order of President Roosevelt,
under circumstances that made it practically
supersede the Board of Food and Drug Inspec-
tion, of which the Chief Chemist is the head.
This report has caused the Government to re-
verse its former prohibitive ruling against such
preservatives as benzoate of soda, sulphurous
acid, saccharin, and sulphate of copper. Not
only are those substances — and especially the
benzoates — being used freely once more, but
manufacturers employing them find an excuse
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in the new Government ruling for printing
on their labels: "Our goods have been pre-
pared according to the Pure Food Law rulings,"
or some corresponding statement of a wholly
misleading tendency. But this temporary set-
back has not at all discouraged Dr. Wiley.
" I have always believed that sooner or later
the campaign must result in victory, and I feel
the same way to-day," he told me. "I do not
believe wrong interpretation of the law, however
honestly it be made, is going to succeed in
giving protection to the very evils which the
law was enacted to prevent"
In the meantime, Dr. Wiley is preparing to
give active support to the campaign against
short-weight, which is now being waged in
several states. He is against anything that
implies or favors dishonesty. As far back
as 1898 he defined his attitude by saying that
he did not object to the use of cotton oil
or sunflower oil for salad dressing, but what
he did object to Was paying forty cents for a
bottle of such oil when he was thinking that he
was buying olive oil.
Dr. Wiley confesses openly that he hopes for
the day when the standards now being set for
foods and drugs shall be applied to anything
and everything forming a part of our great
interstate commerce — when, instead of "food
and drugs," we shall place the single word
"merchandise" in all laws and regulations
calling for purity, square measure, and honest
labeling. And he once said: "From the
present trend of court decisions I have reason
to believe that it will not be long before people
who misrepresent the quality or the benefits of
their merchandise by printing false adver-
tisements or circulars — even though that
merchandise be labeled within the letter of
the present law — will be prosecuted under
the provisions of that law."
Here we find indication of a programme that
will certainly keep Dr. Wiley working and
fighting for a long time to come. "I have
never stopped fighting, no matter how often
defeated," he says; "I have never become
discouraged, and I was never inclined to give
up any fight."
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
VII
LIFE AMONG "THE SQUATTERS"
BY
ALEXANDER IRVINE
MY NEXT work was in a city of the
second-class, beyond the Mississippi
River. I had been invited as a
pulpit supply by one of its largest churches;
but when I arrived I found the membership
in a wrangle over the pastor who had just left,
and on whose recommendation I was to fill the
pulpit. I arrived in the city on a Sunday
morning, and went direct from my hotel to the
church where I was to preach. I stood for a
few minutes in the vestibule, and what I heard
led me to go straight out again and never
return.
My first impression of the city was that it
contained more vital democracy than any city
I had ever been in. It takes an Old World
proletarian a long time to outgrow a sense of
subserviency. As a missionary and almoner
of the rich in New York, this sense was very
strong in me. In the West I felt this vital
democracy so keenly, Mid saw the vision of
political independence so clearly, that my very
blood seemed to change. Politically, I was
born again.
While studying the social conditions of
the city, I took a residence on the banks of the
river, among the squatters. There were about
fifteen hundred people living in "shacks" on
this "No Man's Land." My residence was
a "shack," for which I paid $3 a month. It
was at the bottom of a big clay bank, and
not far from where the city dumped its
garbage. There was neither church nor
chapel in this neglected district, and the
people were mostly foreigners; but the children
all spoke English.
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During the early part of my stay in that
"shack," I entered my first great period of
doubting — doubt as to the moral order of the
universe, doubt on the question of God. I
had gone through some great soul struggles,
but this was the greatest. It was for a time
the eclipse of my soul. For weeks I lived
behind closed doors, shut in with my soul.
But the community around me called in a
thousand ways for help, for guidance, for
instruction, and I opened the door of my
"shack" and invited the children in. I organ-
ized a Sunday School, and taught them ethics
and religion. I got up little entertainments
for them. I procured a 9tereopticon, gave
them lectures on my experience in Egypt, and
lectures on art, biography, and history.
I had a peculiar method of advertising
these lectures. I informed the little crippled
boy on the corner. He whispered the infor-
mation to a section of the huts, at the farthest
end of which another golden-haired courier
informed another section; so that by the time
the lecture was scheduled to begin, my audi-
ence was ready. Most of them slid down the
clay bank in front of my door. Later, I went
out through the surrounding towns and cities
lecturing, and raised money for a chapel, and
we called it "The Chapel of the Carpenter."
I never knew the meaning of the incarnation
until I lived on "The Bottoms" with the
squatters. I talked of great characters of his-
tory; I reviewed great books. I traveled with
these children over the great highways of his-
tory, science, and art; and very soon we had
a strong Sunday School, and helpers came from
the city — but the door of my own soul was
still shut. It seemed to me that my soul was
dead. I was without hope for myself; every-
thing around me was dark. Sometimes I
locked the door and tried to pray, but no words
came; not a ray of light penetrated the darkness.
My mind and intellect became duller and
duller.
It was at this time that I came across the
writings of Schopenhauer — and he suggested
to me a method of relief. I may be doing him
an injustice, but it was his philosophy that
made me reason that as I did not ask to come
into life, and had no option, I had a right to go
out of it. There was nothing spasmodic in the
development of my thought along this line —
it was cold, calm reasoning; I had determined
to go out of life. So, with the same calm delib-
eration that I cooked my breakfast, I des-
troyed every vestige of my correspondence;
and, one night, I went to the river to end it alL
I was sitting on the end of a log, when a man
who had been working twelve hours in a
packing-house came out to smoke after his
supper. He had not washed himself. His
bloody shirt stuck to his skin; he was haggard
and pale. We dropped naturally into con-
versation, and I asked him what life meant to
him.
"The kids," he said, "that's what it means
to me. I work like one of the things I kill
every day. I kill hundreds of them, thousands
of them, every day. I go home and eat like one
of them, and sleep like one of them, and go
back to hog it again like one of them."
"Do you get tired?"
"Tired? Tired as hell!"
"I mean — tired of life?"
"Oh, no," he said, "I ain't livin' the best
kind of a life, but what I have -is better than
none. I don't know what'^ beyond — if there
is any life or none at all; but something in me
makes me stick to this one. Besides, if there
is any chance for a better life here, he must
be a damned coward that would go out of it
and leave it undone. Good night"
I saw him retreat to his shack among the tall
weeds. I heard the door close. I fancied him
lying down in a heap in the corner and going
to sleep. He was a better philosopher than
I was, and he had called me a coward, but he
had not altered my determination. I began
to sweat, for I felt that it must be a super-
human effort to quit. It was like the action of
a fever on my body, and I became very ner-
vous; but I was determined to meet the crisis,
and go.
A sudden change in affairs was created by an
unearthly scream — the scream of a woman.
I looked around suddenly and discovered that
the only two-story shack on "The Bottoms"
was in a blaze, and the thought occurred to me
that I might be of some help and accomplish
my purpose at the same time.
In a moment I was beside the burning hut
It appeared that a lamp had exploded upstairs,
and that three small children were hemmed in.
That was the cause of the scream.
A plank that reached to the upstairs window
was lying at the wood-pile. I pushed it
against the house and climbed like a cat into
the burning bedroom. By this time the neigh-
bors had collected, and I helped the woman
and lowered the three children down, one by
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
one, and then deliberately groped for the
stairs to get hemmed in, the smoke suffocating
me as I did so. By the time I found the stairs
my hair was singed and my arms were burned,
but I was gradually losing consciousness; and
before I reached the bottom, I fell, suffocated
with the smoke. In that last moment of con-
sciousness, my whole life came up in review.
I had no regrets. I had played a part, and
it was over.
When I came back to consciousness, I was
lying on my cot in the hut, the neighbors
crowding my little bedroom and standing out-
side in scores. While I was convalescing,
one of the newspapers that had most severely
criticized my interference in politics gave me a
pass to Colorado and return; and in the moun-
tains of Colorado the door of my soul opened
again, and I saw the world beautiful — and
opportunities that were golden for helpful-
ness and service awaiting my touch. So I
returned to my hut with the sense of God
more fully developed in me than it had ever
been.
They had a system in that city that I was
very much ashamed of — that. I thought all
men ought to be ashamed of — the segrega-
tion of " the social evil." I discovered that the
city fined these poor creatures of the streets,
and that these fines (amounting to thousands
of dollars every year) went into the public
school fund. It could truly be said, therefore,
that the more debauched society became, the
more efficiently it could educate its children.
These houses in the red-light district were
built to imitate castles on the Rhine, and were
owned by church people and politicians. Every-
body winked at this condition. One minister
of the town uttered a loud protest and took
his children out of the public schools, but he
had to leave the city. The Christians would
not stand for such a protest. The newspapers
would not touch it; trustees would not touch it;
the great political parties would not touch it.
I joined the Knights of Labor in that city,
an organization then in its prime of strength,
but they would not touch it. I joined the
People's Party, in the hope that there I might
do something about it. One of the leading
members of that party importuned me to
nominate him as presiding officer of the city
convention. "On one condition," I told him;
"that you appoint me chairman of the com-
mittee on resolutions." And the compact was
made.
Five men were on that committee, and when
I asked them to put in a resolution condemning
the education of children from this fund, they
refused. I could persuade only one of the
four to indorse my resolution. The minority
report signed by two of us condemned this
remnant of Sodom, and our minority report
swept the convention almost unanimously.
Even the three men on the resolution com-
mittee who had refused to sign it voted for
it in convention. I am aware that it does not
matter from what fund or funds the public
school system is supported. I am aware, also,
that one of the things that we can do is to
make that kind qf thing cover up its head.
What I suffered for that resolution can
never be recorded.
My period of mental depression was followed
by a period of poverty — of destitution, rather.
I was physically unable to work with my
hands, and I had not yet tried to earn money
by my pen. I was often so reduced by hunger
that I could scarcely walk. At such times
one feels more than grateful for friendships.
Into my life at that time came a few choice
souls, whose fellowship acted as a dynamic
to my life.
It was when things were at their worst that
George D. Herron found me. The almost
Jewish cast of features — the strange, won-
derful voice — the prophetic atmosphere of the
man forced me to express the belief that I had
never met a human being who seemed to me
so like Christ. Then came George A. Gates,
the president of Iowa College, where Dr.
Herron was a professor. About the same time
came Elia W. Peattie and Ida Doolittle Fleming.
Mrs. Fleming and her husband helped me
organize a Congregational church; this, when
organized, was a means of support. These
souls — so brave, so true — were like angels
of God to me, and I owe much to them.
The church was in a growing section of the
city, but I could not be persuaded to live there.
I lived where I thought my life was most ser-
viceable — on "The Bottoms."
This period was not one of total rejection
by any means; powerful influences were at
work to render my labor void, but they were
offset for a time by the finer influences of life.
I gave a series of addresses in Tabor College,
Iowa, and they were the beginning of an awak-
ening' among the students. After the last
word of the last address, the student about
whom the president and faculty were most con-
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
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MR. IRVINE AND ONE OF HIS PICNIC PARTIES
cerned, walked up the aisle and expressed a
desire to lead a new life.
"Do it now," I suggested.
"Right here?"
"Yes; right where you stand."
The president and faculty gathered around
him, making a circle; he stood in the midst,and
in that way, with prayer and dedication from the
lips of the young man and his friends, one of the
most useful lives in the American ministry began.
This young man became an ascetic. I gave
him to read the Life of Francis of Assissi,
and he went to the extreme in emulation, and
on graduating read his thesis for his Bachelor's
degree without collar or necktie.
I was in New Haven when he came there
to take his Divinity degree in Yale. He came
without either collar or tie, but after days of
prayer and fasting he was "led" to enter the
University as others entered it. He is now
pastor of the First Congregational Church in
Rockford, 111.; his name is Frank M. Sheldon.
Nine men have gone by a similar route into the
ministry, but Mr. Sheldon is the only one of
them who has kept touch with the modern
demands on religious leadership.
Birthdays have meant nothing whatever to
me, but I made my thirty-second an occa-
sion for a party on "The Bottoms." I could
accommodate only seven guests. Two were
favorite boys, * and the others were selected
MR. IRVINE AS A BRITISH SOLDIER
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because of their great need. My hut was the
centre of a mud-puddle that January morning.
I got a long plank and laid it from my door-
step to the edge of the clay bank. I took the
precaution not to announce the affair, even
to the guests, but a grocer's boy who had been
sent by a friend with some oranges lost his
way, and his inquiry after me created such a
sensation that when he found me he was
accompanied by about fifty children.
Old Mrs. Belgarde, my nearest neighbor,
I had taught these children some simple
rules of order; when I opened the door I rang
a little bell. There was absolute silence. They
had been actually tearing each other's clothing
to rags for a position near the door.
I told them that I was so poor that I had
scarcely enough food for myself; that the little
that I had I was going to share with seven of
my special friends. Of course, they all con-
sidered themselves included in that character-
ization. " Dear little friends," I said, " I never
MR. IRVINE WORKING AS A LUMBERMAN IN THE SOUTH
had whispered across the fence to her neigh-
bor that something was sure to happen, for
she had noticed me making unusual prepara-
tions that day. I think that the origin of the
party idea came with my first birthday gift —
I mean the first I had ever received; it was a
copy of Thomas k Kempis, given me by a
friend. (I gave it later to a man who was to
die by judicial process in the county jail that
month.)
When the hour arrived a crowd of two hun-
dred youngsters stood in the mud outside. On
the top of the clay bank stood parents, crossing
themselves, and praying quietly tliat their
offspring would be lucky enough to get in.
had a birthday party before, and now you are
going to spoil this one."
Up to this time the crowd didn't know who
the guests were. I proceeded to call the names.
As those called made a move, there was a vio-
lent fight for the door; some of them I had to
drag out of the clutches of the unsuccessful.
Only six of the seven were there. There was
a howl from a hundred throats to take the place
of the absent one. " No," I said sternly, " he'll
come, all right."
A roar of discontent went up, and chaos
reigned. I couldn't make myself heard. I
rang the bell and again calmed them. I was
at a loss to know what to say.
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"Dear little folks," I said, "I thought you
loved me!"
"Do, too!" whined a dozen voices.
"Then, if you do, go away, and some day
I will have a party for every child on 'The
Bottoms/ "
That quieted the youthful mob, and they
departed — that is, the majority departed.
Some stayed and bombarded the doors and
windows with stones. There were few stones
to be found, and as it didn't occur to them to
Eddy was also eleven, but the oldest of all
in point of wits. I had a claim on Eddy; one
day he was amusing himself by jerking a cat,
whose tail was tied to the end of a string, in
and out of Frau Belgarde's well. She was
stealthily approaching him with a piece of
fence-rail when I arrived and prevented some
broken bones. Kaiser was nearly twelve; he,
too, had been in a reform school. He liked
it, and would have been glad to stay as long
as they wanted him, for he had three meals
MR. IRVINE jiext to the team) AND THE WHIPPING-BOSS OF A CONVICT CAMP
use the same stones twice, they used mud and
plastered the front of the hut with it. This form
of expression* however, did not disturb us much.
1 sent three of my guests into the back-
yard to wash and comb their hair. They
returned for inspection, but didn't pass. The
hair refused to comply on such short notice.
I put the finishing touches on each of their
toilets, and we sat down to supper.
The oldest boy, Fritz, was half-past twelve,
and the youngest, Ano, had just struck ten.
Ano was a cripple, and both legs were twisted
out of shape; he hobbled about on crutches.
Jake was eleven, and had spent two years
in a reformatory, where he had learned to
chew tobacco and swear.
a day — and he had never had such "luck"
outside. Whitey was a little Swedish boy
whose mother worked in a cigar factory.
Kaiser had a "dug-out," and they spent
more nights together in it than they spent
in their huts.
Fritz, the oldest boy, began his career in the
open by stealing his father's revolver; jump-
ing on the first grocery wagon that he found
available, he left town. Of course, he was
brought back and " sent up " for a year. Franz,
the absent one, was Ano's brother, and the
toughest boy in the community.
These brief outlines describe the guests of
my birthday party. "When ye make a feast,
call the poor," was stretched a little to cover
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
this aggregation — stretched as to the char-
acter of those invited.
A blessing was asked by the host and
repeated by the guests. Of things to eat
there was enough and to spare. After din-
ner each was to contribute something to the
entertainment.
"Beginning here to my left with Whitey,"
I said, "I want each boy to tell us what he
would like to be when he becomes a man."
was heard outside. Then — "Bang! Bang!!
Bang!!!" and the timbers of the hut shivered;
the guests made a rush to the back door. I
was there first, and found Franz, the missing
guest, his arms smeared with blood; his
ragged jacket was covered with hair of some
sort, and in his hand was a bloody stiletto.
He rushed past me into the hut, got to the
table, and exclaimed: "Gee whiz, der ain't
a scrap left!"
MR. IRVIXK IX HIS "SHACK" AT NORTHFIELD, MASS.
Whitey without hesitation said: "A organ
man with a monkey."
"Why?"
" 'Cause."
Eddy said that he would like to be a butcher,
and as a reason gave: "Plenty ov beef V eat."
Kaiser preferred to be a Reformatory boss.
Ano, the cripple, said that he would like to
be a minister; when pressed for a reason, he
said: "That what m' father says — dey ain't
gotnotin' t' do!"
In the midst of this social quiz a loud voice
" Look here, Franz," I said, " I want to know
what you've been up to."
"Ye do, hey — ye look skeered, too, don't
yer — hey?"
"Never mind how I look; tell me at once
what you've been up to!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" he laughed. "D'ye tink I kilt
some ol' sucker for 'is money — hey? Ha, ha!
Well, I hain't, see ? I've bin skinnin' a dead hoss
an' brot ye d' skin for a birf-day present, see?"
The skin was lying in a bloody heap outside
the back door.
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I arranged Franz for dinner and the party
was complete.
I told some stories; then we played games,
and at ten o'clock they went home.
The moment the front door was opened,
about forty children, each with a lighted candle
in hand, sang a verse of my favorite hymn —
"Lead, Kindly Light." They knew but one
verse, but that they sang twice. It was a weird
performance, and moved me almost to tears.
After the song they came down the clay bank and
shook hands, wishing me all sorts of things.
I tried to speak, but my tongue stuck to the
roof of my mouth. I was positively scared.
The old fellow walked up to the tree, pour-
ing out as he walked a volley of oaths.
I recovered my equilibrium, sprang over the
fence, crept up behind, and jumped on him,
knocking him down and instantly disarming him.
I went inside with them and sat between
them until they seemed to have forgotten
what had happened. Then 1 put them to bed,
put the light out, and went home.
I examined the revolver and found it empty.
MR. IRVINE (seated, with straw hat) AND ONE OF HIS CAMl'S FOR BOYS NEAR NEW
HAVEN, CONN.
Two nights afterward I had a different
kind of a party. A bullet came crashing
through the boards of my hut about midnight;
rushing to the door, I saw the flashes of other
shots in a neighbors garden. I went to the
high board-fence and saw one of my neigh-
bors — a German — emptying a revolver at
his wife, who was dodging behind a tree.
My first impulse was to jump the fence and
save the woman; my second thought was that
the man, being evidently half-drunk, might
turn and pour into me what was intended for
his wife. The first law of nature prevailed.
Next morning I went back and told the old
man that I would volunteer to give him some
lessons in target practice — and that the
reason I knocked him down was because he was
such a poor shot.
This old couple became my staunchest sup-
porters in the work of the chapel.
I interested the students of Tabor College
in the people of that out-of-the-way com-
munity; and before I built "The Chapel of
the Carpenter" (which still stands there) I
organized a college settlement, which was
manned by the students of the college.
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
The small church, the chapel on "The
Bottoms," the work of the college students,
and the increasing circle of converts and
friends made the work attractive to me, but I
had entered the political field in order to pro-
test against, and possibly remedy, something
civic that savored of Sodom — and for a min-
ister that was an unpardonable sin. The
"interests" determined to cripple me or
destroy my work. This they did successfully
by the medium of a subsidized press and by
The experiences of 1894, 1895, ^d 1896,
gave me a distaste, really a disgust, with pubr
lie life. I felt that I would never enter a large
city again. I sought retirement in a country
parish. This was secured for me by a friend,
then president of Tabor College, Reverend
Richard Cecil Hughes. It was in a small town
in Iowa — Avoca, in Pottawattamie County —
and I determined to stay but a year there.
In 1897 I was in Cleveland, Ohio, in charge
of an institution called "The Friendly Inn."
MR. IRVINE (front row, centre) AND THE DEACONS OF THE NEW HAVEN CHURCH
other means, fair and foul. It was a case of
a city against one man — a rich city against a
poor man, and the man went down to defeat
— apparent defeat, anyway. I packed my
belongings and left.
As I crossed the bridge which spans the
river, I looked on the little squatter colony
on "The Bottoms," and as my work there
passed in review, for the second time in my
life I was stricken with homesickness, and I
was guilty of what my manhood might have
been ashamed of — tears.
It was a very good name, if the place had either
been an inn or friendly. My inability to make
it either forced me to leave it before I had been
there many months.
It was in Cleveland that I first joined a
labor union. I was a member of what was
called a Federal Labor Union, and was elected
as its representative to the central body of the
union movement.
Early in 1898 I was in Springfield, Mass.,
delivering a series of addresses to a Bible
School there. My money ran out and, not
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
12457
being in receipt of any remuneration and
not caring to make my condition known, I
was forced for the first time in my life to
become a candidate for a church. There were
two vacant pulpits, and I went after both of
them. Meantime, I boarded with a few Bible
students who had "plenty of nothing but
gospel.' '
They lived on seventy-five cents a week.
Living was largely a matter of Scripture texts,
hope, and imagination. I used to breakfast
through my eyes at the beautiful lotus pond
in their seats to take my measure. It was
their inning. I had been duly looked up in
the year-book, and my calibre gauged by the
amount of money paid me in previous pas-
torates.
The "service" began. My address to the
Almighty was prepared — part of the game
is to make believe that it is purely extempora-
neous. Every move, intonation, and gesture is
noted and has its bearing on the final result.
I was saying to the ecclesiastical jury:
"Look here, you dumb heads, wake up! I'm
MR. IRVINE AT WORK ON BROOK FARM, NEXr NEW HAVEN, CONN.
in the park. We lunched usually on soup
that was a constant reminder of the soul of
Tomlinson, of Berkeley Square. Quantita-
tively speaking, supper was the biggest meal
of the day — it was a respite also for our
imaginations.
The day of my candidacy arrived. I was
prepared to play the most despicable of all
ecclesiastical tricks — make an impression. I
prepared the hymn, almost memorized the
Scripture reading, and prepared my favorite
sermon. My personal appearance had never
been so well attended to.
The hour arrived. The little souls sat back
the thing you need here!" Sermon time came,
an<d with it a wave of disgust that swept over
my soul.
"Good friends," I began, "I am not a
candidate for the pastorate here. I was a
few minutes ago, but am not now. Instead of
doing the work of an infinite God and letting
Him take care of the results, I have been try-
ing to please you. If the Almighty will for-
give me for such meanness, I swear to Him
that I will never do it again."
Then I preached. This brutal plainness
created a sensation, and several tried to dis-
suade me, but I had made up my mind.
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MR. ELIHU VEDDER, OF ROME
Whose "Reminiscences" are chapters out of one of the most interesting lives of our time
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"ROM&"
\ panel for Bawdoin
Toller
PrtbieH in 1894
Photograph by
iTnf C C Hutthim
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN
PAINTER
i
ART EDUCATION FIFTY YEARS AGO
BY
ELIHU VEDDER
[Note. — Mr. Veddefs Reminiscences , four chapters of which will be published in this
magazine, are an important contribution to the art history of this country — but far more im-
portant: they have the merit of being vivacious and interesting. His work that is best known
to a wide public is, perhaps, the collection of imaginative scenes to illustrate the Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam, and a number of panels in the Library of Congress. Mr. Vedder has put into
his sketchy reminiscences the same qualities that make him one of the most companionable of our
time, and one oj the best story-tellers. — The Editors.]
**
WHEN I came upon the scene — in the
City of New York, in Varick Street,
on February 26, 1836 — the old
Dutch days, the Colonial period, and the Rev-
olution were legends of the fireside; but they
were far more vivid than the War of 1812, or
than the Mexican War subsequently became.
The romance of those days was still in the air;
it was a beautiful Indian summer preceding the
appearance of the brown-stone front and that
cyclone of jig-sawing which swept over the land
shortly after, leaving scarcely a house untouched.
12460
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
MR. VEDDER'S FATHER
' My mother went to church, but I know that wherever a fish was to
l>e found, my father went fishing"
THE GENTLE MOTHER
'It had always been my mother':* wish that I should be a great artist,
and for her sake I wish it could have been so"
In Chambers Street, where it joins the end
of the Bowery, there is, or was, a block of
houses running to a sharp point — a pre-
cursor of the celebrated "Flatiron" uptown.
In this house, with the last rooms like a section
GRANDFATHER — DUTCHMAN AND WHIG
"He believed that he was already damned or saved, so never
bothered about it"
of pie, as I used to think, my father had his
office, and we one of our temporary homes.
We had staying with us at that time a dear old
fellow — a Mr. Humphrey. I was very fond
of him, and we were great friends. His room
was in the attic and 1 was sent up one morn-
ing to call him to breakfast. I found him
crouched on the floor, his head leaning against
the wall. I thought him asleep, his face was
so peaceful; I tried to awaken him, but could
not. He was dead.
Years after, I painted a picture called "The
Dead Alchemist,,; in it you can see just how
he looked.
From Chambers Street we moved uptown
to Grand Street. This "uptown" may cause
a smile, but it was not so very far uptown after
all, for I once went way uptown — as far as
the Bull's Head Tavern — and saw the hay
scales and the farmers and their loads of hay.
That was uptown, if you please, as far up as
the Cooper Institute, and the hay must have
come all the way from the neighborhood of
Central Park.
My father, before he left for Cuba, used to
take me walking with him, usually down to
the foot of Canal Street, and I think it must
have been on Sundays, from the perfect quiet
of that spot. Beyond, over the noble river,
stretched the green and peaceful shores ,of
Hoboken and New Jersey. Did he go fishing
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THE SCHOOLBOY WHO STAYED AT THE FOOT OF THE CLASS
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
on Sunday ? I seem to remember something of
the sort. My mother went to church, but I
know that wherever a fish was to be found,
my father went fishing. I know I went to
Sunday school, for there I met Emmaline —
a beautiful, regularly featured, pale, cleaf-
complexioned girl, giving signs of early stout-
ness. I thought she looked like the mother
of Washington. It was she who always
sang, accompanying herself upon a melodeon,
" Home Again, Home Again, from a Foreign
and adventure, heightened by my equally ro-
mantic voyage to Cuba — that great inter-
lude which at once set me above and apart
from the stay-at-homes. It was to me a beauti-
ful place, and full of interest: the Mohawk
River, the Canal, the awe-inspiring College,
and my relatives were the principal features.
One other — the school — was the only fly in
the ointment of my youthful happiness.
Schenectady was still Dutch. The houses
had stoops on which the peaceful pipe sent up
■
"THE DEAD ALCHEMIST"
"Years after, I painted a picture; in it you can see just how he looked"
Shore," whenever I, as a matter of fact,
came home again. At first it was adoration
and I wondered how my friend, her brother,
could treat such a peerless creature with such
rude familiarity. As a little boy I regarded
her with secret and respectful admiration; as
a bigger boy, as one to flirt with; as a youth,
one who faded from my ken, previously marry-
ing a railroad man. I do not think she even
pined; and J was an artist!
Many days of my childhood were passed in
Schenectady, and they were all romance
its fumes in the quiet evening, when the boys
brought from their distant pastures the slow-
moving cows, to be placidly milked in the
backyard.
I had the kindest-hearted and best mother
that ever lived. Yet, when I once rushed to
her for comfort and help, having fallen and
hurt my knee, I was met by the heartless ques-
tion: "Have you torn your trousers ?" That
was enough. I said nothing. I at once made
up my mind, and went behind the barn to
perfect my plan. I wo^ldd ble<§<^eal away
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12463
in the night. I would make up a bundle
— such a little bundle — and I, a little boy
with my little bundle, would go on foot all
alone to some distant seaport, and there, tell-
ing my story to some kind captain, would beg
him to take me with him as a sailor-boy, no
matter how hard and rude the life might be.
The thought brought tears to my eyes; but,
getting hungry, I returned to the house and
found that they had never missed me.
In those far-off days, I can remember no one
as being very rich or very poor. There was
no absolute poverty, and, above all, there
was no absolute vulgarity. In the same
family you found clergymen and blacksmiths.
There was no profanity, at least not among my
people, and no funny stories — except those
in the Bible. Everything in the Bible was all
right then. I suppose the fun of childhood
consists in action, not in thought; but, think-
ing things over now, I see that there were
a great many funny things about, but no
funny men.
In those early days no Christian home was
A BROOKLYN SKETCH USED IN PAINTING "THE PLAGUE
IN FLORENCE "
complete without a Hell. This I could hear
daily dinned into my companions, but my
mother — God bless her! — being a Univer-
salist, spared my life this nightmare.
The day came when, with my little trunk
and a few bundles and many parting injunc-
tions, I was put on the stage which, leaving
Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn, went to Jamaica,
Long Island. It was a school of its time.
Learn your lesson by memory and you stood
at the head of your class; failing in that, no
'THE PLAGUE IN FLORENCE*
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12464
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
1 A SKETCH MADE IN THE SKETCH CLUB AT NIGHT'
matter how clever you were otherwise, you
stood at the foot. I was clever otherwise,
but was always being kept in and always
stood at the foot of the class. But when
school hours were over I was as good as
the rest — indeed, was a favorite with one
gentle teacher, he of the hazel-colored
eyes with little specks in them. He used
to take me with him in his walks, and
really taught me something. I remem-
ber him with pleasure and gratitude.
There was in Jamaica an old painter
whose studio I soon became familiar
with. His studio was fairyland. He
loaned me Allan Cunningham's " Lives
of English Artists," and as he was
always chewing tobacco and had his
mouth full of amber-colored liquid, I
thought it must be the magilp or "gump-
tion" frequently mentioned in the Life
of Reynolds.
Our morals were strictly seen to, for
one of the regulations of the school was
that each boy must go to church twice
on Sundays — once to a church selected
by his parents, while the other was left to
his discretion. My father must have been
somewhat puzzled to decide which church
I was to attend, but he settled on the
Dutch Reformed: the "Dutch," corrob-
orated by " Reformed," must have decided
him. We boys always went into the
gallery, and in that of the Dutch Reformed
"TWENTY-FOUR WAYS OF BEING IDLE IN PISA"
From Mr. Vedder's sketch-book
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12465
A SKETCH
"Drawn after many rides with
the pretty widow in the ' Bob' —
very romantic"
I had much pleasant
sleep. Not so at the
Episcopal Church,
which was unan-
imously selected by
the outsiders as the
second string to their
bow, for there the
varied ceremonial,
the getting up and
sitting down, kept
us from sleeping and
afforded us much
amusement, quite
Sunday-school had
It was at this
A SKETCH
" A Madonna of Darkness. There
must be an idea in it somewhere,
but I've forgotten what it is"
apart from the service.
its moments of relaxation.
time that I propounded certain questions that
have remained un-
answered to this day.
I started out by
saying: "You tell
me that God knows
everything that has
been, is, and is to
be?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, if I
should make a little
cart with wheels
which I could wind
up and which would
run along the ground
when I let go of it,
and I should wind it up and say to it: 'If
you run when I let go, I will smash you' —
what would you think of me?"
"My child, you are too young to under-
stand such things;
when^you get older,
all that will be ex-
plained."
I am still waiting
for the explanation
— still too young,
perhaps.
I was now sent to
take lessons from an
old-fashioned draw-
ing-master. He set
me the task of copy-
ing a few poor old
pencil-drawings, and
a sketch j at once rebelled.
"Must have been thinking of rpi ^^ „„«• „ nA<.T*~
some pleasant subject by GeVdme Then, Seeing ad Ver-
when i made this" tisements of beauti-
A SKETCH
"This must be a reminiscence of
*The Lost Mind' — painted during
the Civil War"
ful work to be done
at home in black
lacquer and mother-
of-pearl, I tried that,
driven to it by the
idea that money
must be at the root
of all professions.
These people sup-
plied all the material
and no doubt waxed
rich while their poor
dupes waxed poorer
through their fail-
ures; or, if they succeeded, then their work
was bought from them for a mere song.
This attempt filled the house with dirt and
evil odors, and must
have gone over the
land like a pest.
The iridescence of
the mother-of-pearl
was as beautiful as
the result was hid-
eous, so I gave it up.
It had always
been my mother's
wish that I should
be an artist, a great
artist, and for her
sake I wish it could
have been so. For
my own part, I am
perfectly content to be just what I am, and
finally to occupy the little niche that posterity
may assign to me; although I beg leave to
have my doubts about posterity, having felt
but little need of its kind offices, yet nourish-
ing at the same time
a little hope that it
will think kindly of
me. I think it wise
to assume that it
will, and so get all
the comfort that
idea gives during my
lifetime.
My mother's wish,
then, that I should
be an artist, and my
father's desire that I
should make money,
led to a compromise, # A SKETCH
n~A T „,«„ ™,4- ,„:fU '"This is a design for an orna-
and I was put with ment It h ^Vked at tight
an architect. I don't side up or upside down"
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A SKETCH
" A mixture of Tennyson's ' Break,
Break, Break' with memory of those
left behind in America"
12466
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
wish it understood that I consider architecture
a compromise, for I have always held it to be
one of the noblest of the arts.
In Chambers Street, nearly opposite our old
home, there hung out from a house a small
sign. It was black, with the facade pf a
Grecian temple in white and in high relief
projecting from its dusty surface. This
drawings for the engravers, the engraver being
then the better man. When the friendly
architects had found out how unsuited I was
to their profession, it was decided that I should
be sent to Mr. Matteson, who had been very
successful in his drawings for " Brother Jona-
than." But I am sure that before that event
I passed some of my happiest days in the
'THE QUESTIONER OF THE SPHINX"
One of Mr. Vedder's best-known paintings. It is in the Boston Art Museum
marked the business abode of Shugg and
Beers, Architects. It was just like Dickens,
and I remember that Mr. Beers's nose was a
little red. All became very fond of me, and
I kept the office lively with my pranks, but
they all decided that I ought to be an artist —
for it never entered their innocent heads that
an architect could be both. They merely
made the drawings for builders — just as I
afterward found that artists merely made
school of good Mr. Parsons, in Moriches, on
the south side of Long Island; for the well-
meant but misdirected efforts of my father to
give me an education were persistent. Per-
haps he really did not know what else to do
with me — a thing which explains much
schooling.
Parsons was wise as well as good. I was
a permanent boarder, and there were some
six other lads coming as day scholars. I
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12467
said he was wise, for he came to a wise con-
clusion with regard to me: half- work and half-
play he thought indicated in my case, with a
fair amount of gallivanting in the evening after
dinner. Short lessons, well-learned, dur-
ing the morning; gun or boat all the after-
noon; girl in the evening. I enjoyed this
programme immensely, and happenings began
to happen. I made good progress both in
studies and amusements.
I don't think I did much in the way of art
at Moriches. From my not finding it among
my things, I think a meagre littie picture I
made of Mr. Parsons's house must have been
given to him. It was a square wooden house
— square, from the lazy habit of those days
of putting a try-square on every timber and
sawing it off, which dictated the pitch of every
roof from Maine to Florida, no matter what
the climate or rainfall. It had a new picket-
fence painted white, stretching along the
straight board sidewalk. In the picture I
painted every picket.
I was eventually sent to Sherbourne, N. Y.,
and entered the studio of T. H. Matteson,
now best known as the painter of " The Spirit
of '76." What followed offers as good an
example of the pranks of Providence as you
will find outside of a museum — but I suppose
that is the way the Tangled Skein is made up.
Matteson was remarkable for being a self-
made man who had made a good job of it.
Somewhat stately and precise in manner, but
kindly and with a fine sense of humor, he had
turned out a gentleman in spite of very adverse
circumstances.
He wore a steeple-crowned hat and a short
mantle, and was not averse to being called
"the Pilgrim Painter." One of his favorite
subjects was the Pilgrim, either departing or
arriving — arriving invariably on a different
part of the coast, and always in wretched
weather. In spite of this, prayers of thank-
fulness were always ascending, thus giving a
vivid idea of what they must have left behind.
He had made something out of his illus-
trations and was now painting portraits, and
must have been, with his large family, in very
straitened circumstances; yet he never com-
plained nor allowed it to be seen. He also
made something out of the lessons he gave us,
for we amounted to five or six pupils. I tell
all this, to leave a little record of a man I loved,
respected, and admired. He was a man of talent
ruined by circumstances and his surroundings.
Had he gone to Paris and stayed there, he
would undoubtedly have made his mark.
When I went sketching in Sherbourne, I
sought for lofty granite peaks catching the last
rays of the sun, for hills convent-crowned, or
castles on abrupt cliffs frowning down on
peaceful abbeys below, reflected in the tranquil
stream — for the picturesque mill and its mossy
wheel, for thatched cottages and the simple
milkmaid, or the peasant playing on his
rustic pipe.
When more seriously inclined, I sought
the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault to hear
the tones of the organ; or, if on speculation
or contemplation bent, the quiet cloister. Did
I find these things? Not much!
The rocks were of disintegrating slate, the
hills rounded and covered with monotonous
green — no convents, no castles, no abbeys,
no mills. The cottages were shingled; the
milkmaid wore a sunbonnet and chewed gum;
the peasant played on a tobacco-pipe; the
fretted vault was of pine; the organ, a melodeon;
the cloister — a pig-pen. One who ought to
have been a rustic addressed me thus:
" Say, do you know what they take you for
around here? I was talking with Mis' Jenks
daown to the bridge un' she says: There's
been a young chap raound lately, with a tin
box, perchin' on fences and things; hain't been
to the house yet, but daresay he'll come; I
kinder think he must be a pill-peddler.' "
The winding up of my career at Sherbourne
was almost disastrous. I must make one
rushing sentence of it. Sitting up late with
the girls; sitting up later at the tavern; skating
on the Canal, or dragging melodeons on
sleighs through the snow to serenade the girls;
breaking the ice in my pitcher in the morning
and pouring the ice-water over myself to
harden my muscles — and this after working
all day in a close, over-heated studio — gave
me a fearful cold, and it was decided that I
should go at once to my father, in Cuba.
This must have been in 1856, for I find in
my list of sales that my copy of Wilkie's " Blind
Fiddler," made from an engraving at Matte-
son's, had been sent on to Matanzas and sold
at a raffle — I imagine the only way of dis-
posing of it. By the way, someone said that
the color was the same as the original picture.
This person must have had a good memory
for color, or perhaps he only said so. At this
time I painted a picture of a ship, a splendid
"clipper," taken from one of those pictures
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
that used to hang on the walls of the offices
downtown.
My first order was from an old schoolmaster,
Brinkerhoff, and I find that this sale swelled
my income until it amounted for the year
to the sum of $50. Thus encouraged, my
father kept on with my artistic education. I
also painted a portrait of my friend Ben, in
which I thought I had succeeded in the shad-
ow cast by a broad-brimmed hat on his
honest features. And, in my way, I studied
hard, and also commenced a diary, in which
I gave a long account of how my work was
interrupted by a stye on my eyelid. It is
lucky that I discontinued it; for, commencing
so young, it would not only have rivaled Pepys's
but gone him several volumes better — or worse.
But be that as it may, on my return to New
York I frequented the old Diisseldorf Gallery
in Broadway, and noticed how well adapted
it was to the carrying out of a combined
scheme of flirtation and study. The Gallery
had been named the "Lovers' Tryst," from
the fact that an indifferent public left "the
banquet-hall deserted," or almost so, and
that the pictures on projecting screens made
secluded spots of which fond lovers soon
availed themselves. Thus, when I took to
trysting there, as the consequence of making
the acquaintance of a very pretty girl, I found
that I was not the "first who ever burst into
that silent sea." I may note that this trysting
serves to explain why I was not more influ-
enced by the Diisseldorf School, and also shows
how I neglected my opportunities — I mean
artistic opportunities.
With a new gold watch, a new trunk, and a
pocket well supplied with money, my friend
Ben and I started for Havre, en route for
Paris. Rhodes, a former student with me at
Matteson's, left by the same steamer and
we three became inseparable. We sailed in
June, 1856, on the Barcelona^ with a screw-
propeller and a tendency to roll that was
exasperating to a weak stomach.
In Paris we took an entresol in the Rue
Notre Dame de Lorette and set up house-
keeping, from motives of economy. We found
that the dear little old woman we had hired
to take care of the rooms was an excellent cook,
and we had dinners "mighty merry," and
even invited guests. But the pace became
too fast for our funds. I then remembered
my father's injunction about taking care;
thinking it unsafe to go about with a new gold
watch, I placed it for safe keeping in the hands
of my "aunt," as they say in Paris. We then
moved up to Mont Martre near by, up by the
windmills, and afterward to the Latin Quarter.
But while water was running under the
bridges of Paris, grass was not growing under
our feet, for we at once found out that in the
Atelier Picot more grand prix de Rome had
been won than in any other, so we went there
and were admitted. The instruction con-
sisted in a little old man with a decoration
coming twice a week and saying to each one
of us, "pas maly pas mal" and going away
again. But we got instruction from the older
students, got it hot and heavy and adminis-
tered in the most sarcastic way.
Who can tell of the workings of Fate ? Had
I fallen in with some of the American students
of Couture, I might have gone there and gotten
over a faithful but fiddling little way of draw-
ing which hangs around me yet, or I might have
said in later years with a most talented friend
of mine: "I wish to God I could get rid of
that cut-and-dried Beaux-arts style."
Picot's Atelier was an old and renowned one.
As to the manners and customs, "they had
no manners and the customs were beastly."
When some gentleman called for an inter-
view with Monsieur Picot, he was received
by the students with the most exquisite polite-
ness, and told to be seated; after a great
amount of consultation, he was invited to
follow a student into the presence — and
was shown into anything but the presence of
the master. In the meantime a dab of Prus-
sian blue was placed in his hat, where it would
come in contact with his forehead. Of course,
the victim left amid howls of derision, and the
Prussian blue then kept up the merry tale.
This Prussian blue is the most subtle and
invading color on the palette. It is like those
articles marked "made in Germany," which
go everywhere. It was the cause of the
ruder manifestations of French "esprit" being
abandoned in the Atelier Picot. This is the
tradition: A new student one day was stripped,
tied to a ladder, painted all over with Prus-
sian blue, and then set out in the street, lean-
ing against a wall. One can easily imagine
how the police went into the matter, and one
acquainted with Prussian blue can imagine
how they came out. The whole quarter must
have been tinged with blue.
In all the mischief of the studio there were
three leading spirits. One, Le Roux, was
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12469
about as handsome a figure of a man as I
have ever seen. Another was De Coursey.
He was the mischief-maker, and Cousin was
an able third. On Saturday afternoon, late,
there took place the main "shindy" of the
week. All the chairs and stools were piled
up into a pyramid as high as could be con-
structed; then all retired to the door and a
stool was hurled at the pile and the door
shut, and we stood listening to hear the awful
row as everything came down with a crash.
It was also the custom, just before this, to
roll up our blouses into hard balls and com-
mence pelting each other, seeking to catch
the unwary. I was drawing from a cast
of the torso of the Laocoon, all encumbered
with drawing-board, chair and stool in front,
when I got a hard ball on the back of my neck.
I looked around, and there was Cousin scowl-
ing at me. Of course, I sent back the ball,
when he jumped at me and commenced kick-
ing at me. After freeing myself from the
hampering chairs and my arm from its sling,
I watched for a good chance and planted
a blow on his nose. The blood spurted like
a fountain and seemed to bring filings to a
standstill. My blood also, though not out,
was up; walking to the stove, I picked up the
poker and said to the assembly: "See here,
play is play. I will do just what you do, but
if any fellow kicks at me I will kill him with
this! Now translate that, will you?" This
polite request was addressed to a student
who understood English.
Now Cousin was the most quarrelsome man
there, but he was also a first-rate fellow. After
explanations, we made up and all repaired to
a neighboring cafe, where we sealed a bond
of eternal friendship in a bowl of punch.
Years afterward Cousin came to my studio
in the Via Margutta and, after an affectionate
embrace, he asked me if I did not want to buy
all his sketching outfit, for he said no French-
man ought to be painting while a Prussian was
on the soil of France — and off he went to
the war. He had just come up, from Capri,
and I was told that there also he had received
his usual blow on the nose in some row at
Pagano's. The handsome Le Roux had both
legs shot off in the war, and I have lost sight
of the third of the trio.
But the Latin Quarter? The grisette was
still alive in my day, and I believe (much as
things have changed) is now as lively as ever.
You will find all about, her in "Trilby."
One little drawing that I made may have
been a Trilby, only her name was Clara. It
is long ago, a dream which I will leave
"undeveloped." Rhodes was a kind of Sven-
gali. He was also the rich one of the party.
I have forgotton to say that Ben, having a
few words more of French than the rest of
us, did the translating and became at once
a proficient in Latin-Quarter French.
Fate, the stupidity of drawing from casts,
the roving instinct, and the opportunity — and
Rhodes's need of a companion — drew me to
Italy. It is impossible not to ask what would
have happened had I stayed in Paris — and it
remains always a question without an answer.
We decided to walk from Nice to Genoa.
Our trunks were sent to Rome and we felt
that gypsy-like freedom of the knapsack and
the stout staff. From Nice commences the
happy hunting-ground of Murray, and I leave
him in possession; we had the chance of seeing
Nature when she seemed least to expect us,
at all hours of the day and night, and it was
delightful; and so was Rome — the long hours
in the Colosseum by moonlight, and especially
the twilights passed on the great piers of the
Baths of Caracalla. The fallen masonry
formed such great heaps that the door of the
staircase by which we ascended is now half-
way up one of these piers. The levels above
were one mass of flowers, and the mosaic
pavement up there could have been gathered
by the bushel. But ever was this feeling —
see all you can, for you will never see it again I
And now to think of the long years I have
spent here! It just shows what puppets we
are, and yet I don't deny the guardian angel.
From Rome I went to Florence, and stayed
there about a month; then on to Venice, where
I remained about the same length of time; then
I returned to Florence where I lived for four
years, with the exception of excursions to Pisa,
Lucca, Volterra, San Gemignano, and Siena.
At Venice I absorbed color like a sponge,
for I started as a colorist, strange as it may
seem to some. Yet I wondered at a talented
young French artist making a splendid copy
of Carpaccio, now one of my favorites. I loved
the color but thought the treatment so odd.
So much art burst into my unprepared mind
that the resulting confusion has lasted me for
the rest of my life, and if I give a confused
impression of that period, I can assure the
reader it does not equal the confusion of my
recollections. I studied by myself, and some-
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
times wish I hadn't, for my pictures always
have to me a home-made air which I don't
like. They lack the air of a period or school,
and this — I say it seriously — seems to me
a great defect. I believe that all my defects
have arisen from my trying to cure them.
I commenced with a great love of color
and a strong sense of the solidity of form, but
drawing killed the color and atmosphere weak-
ened the form and reduced me to what I am.
I loved landscape, but was eternally urged to
paint the figure; thus my landscape was
spoiled by the time devoted to figure, and the
figure suffered by my constant flirting with
landscape. What I felt strongly I could
strongly express in the sketch, but the finished
picture killed the feeling — and then in addi-
tion all became sickled o'er by the pale cast
of thought. I was accused of having imagina-
tion. I never said I had imagination, but they
thought I thought it, and people are mistrustful
of imagination, some going so far as to deny
its very existence — or, at least to resent its
intrusion in art, especially when I intrude it.
I could copy nature beautifully, and how
often I have wished that I had dedicated myself
to the painting of cabbages! I mean, painting
them splendidly, with all the witchery of light
and shade and color, until the picture should
contain all the pictorial elements needed in a
"Descent from the Cross" or a "Transfigura-
tion," so that no gallery would be complete
without a cabbage by Vedder.
Like all beginners, I was intensely interested
in processes of painting. I believe I then saw
more clearly how the old masters painted than
I do now. One thing I settled on — that
style should spring entirely from the subject,
be appropriate to it and the time at your dis-
posal, whether you were taking it by assault
or by siege; and my idea of the aim of art
was — first have an idea, and then from your
experiences and the nature about you get the
material to clothe it.
I have just found this truthful and touching
saying in a little "Life of Leighton," by Alice
Corkran: "With every picture I complete,
I follow the funeral of my ideal. "
It may be of interest to some people to trace
the evolution of a painting as it grows in the
artist's mind. The following account of how
"The Dead Abel" and "The Plague in
Florence" were painted is a good illustration :
In Matanzas, where I spent many youthful
days, was a long stretch of beach ending in a
jungle. This was one of my favorite walks;
the cocoanut trees grew along it, some with
their roots in the salt waves. On this beach
were to be found beautiful shells; and the
prismatic-hued Portuguese men-of-war, like
rainbow-colored bladders, were thrown up
during the great gales.
This beach was the place where the unbap-
tized were thrown out. The buzzards loved
the spot. There had been the usual yellow
fever or cholera, and there you would see the
half-burned bedding; on lifting rude boards
in the hollow beneath, the entire skeleton. This
memory served as the first step.
Much later on, I read how the great Horace
Vernet used to occupy any spare moment in
sketching something in a small book he carried
for that purpose. The thing sketched was
anything that attracted his eye — a water-pipe,
a chimney, a wheelbarrow, or anything.
Thinking this a good idea, I at once set up
my little book. We were building a house
in Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, and the first
sketch in the book was of a hole in the ground,
with a ladder half out of it. Please remember
the ladder and the hole.
Later still, I painted a sky over the houses
in the Piazza dell' Independenza in Florence;
it was a yellowish, sickly looking sunset; please
put this aside for future reference.
Now I had been reading Ruskin. In one of
his word-pictures he showed how much more
effective a suggestion of horror is than the
horror itself, and instanced the stream of
blood flowing over the pavement in a "Massa-
cre of the Innocents. "
Then came the time when I was painting
" The Dead Abel. " Wanting to make a study
of an arm, I picked up a sketch of the sunset;
this had a bare space of the proper color in the
foreground on which to paint it. No sooner
had I painted in this arm lying stretched on
the ground than I foresaw the picture. I put
in the half-burned rags, and the hole, with
the ladder turned into a bier, and a few monks
in the background bringing in a body; adding
a few golden tresses of hair escaping from the
half-covered head and lying in the dust —
and there was the picture itself. All it needed
was some well-known Florentine campanile, and
it had its title also— "The Plague in Florence."
[The second article by Mr. Vedder will be " Florentine Years in Retrospect.99]
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THE LITERATURE OF "NEW
THOUGHTERS"
BY
FRANCES MAULE BJORKMAN
CHEER up, dearie; don't take your-
self so seriously. Get busy. Forget
your troubles in useful work. Get
interested in what you have to do. Play.
Play pretend, like when we were children.
Don't sit staring out of the top of your hole.
Take a good look at the hole and see what you
can do to get out of it."
This is a specimen of a new literature that
has grown up in this country within the last few
years. The public knows next to nothing
about it because its books are not, as a rule,
issued by the regular publishing houses nor
offered for sale at the regular book-stores,
nor are its periodicals usually found on ordi-
nary news-stands.
Yet its own peculiar publishers are doing a
thriving business. Their books sell almost
as well as fiction. Their periodicals reach
nearly two millions of people. They have six
substantial magazines, with circulations ranging
from ten to thirty thousand, and with from five
to fifteen pages of advertising each. There
are a dozen others with circulations of from
four to six thousand, and new ones are com-
ing into existence every little while.
This is the literature of self-help, of mind
cure, soul development, or whatever you care
to call the tendency that finds its expression
in the various New Thought and Christian
Science cults. Most of it is of a character to
repel persons of critical taste. Its language
is crude. It makes assertions in regard to
scientific matters that cannot be proved — or,
at least, have not been proved. It is mixed up
with spiritism, astrology, mind-reading, vege-
tarianism, reincarnation, and all sorts of other
"crank" doctrines and fads — and with a
few actual " fakes." The very names of its
publications are enough to make sophisticated
persons smile, and some of the advertising
carried by its magazines makes honest people
cast them aside in disgust.
And yet, it goes — and not merely with the
ignorant and credulous. In fact, the intel-
ligent common-school-educated middle class
furnishes most of its patrons.
A few years ago Mr. Christian D. Larson,
a "metaphysical healer" and lecturer in Cin-
cinnati, started a little magazine containing
some twenty pages of reading matter. He
not only edited and published it, but he wrote
it all — including the advertisements, which
at that time were chiefly of his own books;
"Poise and "Power," "Mastery of Self,"
"The Hidden Secret," "The* Great Within,"
etc. He called it Eternal Progress.
Eternal Progress was devoted to "ATTAIN-
MENT," and particularly in accordance with
the motto on its title-page — to attainment
of "the greatest joy of all joys, the joy of
going on." It preached a gospel of success
through self-development. In each number
Mr. Larson declared again and again that
"he who would achieve greatness must first
become great;" "the secret of greater and
greater success lies in the development of
greater and greater ability." He exhorts
his followers to "concentrate subjectively upon
the finer forces of their natures," and to call
"into action" all the power, energy, and ability
latent within them. Every mind, declared
Mr. Larson, contains possibilities of greatness,
and exact methods for developing these possi-
bilities for practical use in real life were
taught in a department called "The School
of Genius."
Eternal Progress progressed — slowly at
first, then rapidly. To-day Mr. Larson is
president of a Chicago company which pub-
lishes three periodicals and deals in "meta-
physical literature" in general. Eternal Prog-
ress has become The Progress Magazine, a
ioo-page monthly concerned no longer with
the progress of individuals alone but with the
advance of the whole world. A new magazine,
The Cosmic World, has been established to
impart instruction for the development of soul
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12472
THE LITERATURE OF "NEW THOUGHTERS"
and the cosmic consciousness. And last month
a third, Opportunity^ made its appearance.
Opportunity is devoted exclusively to point-
ing out openings for ability. According to its
announcements, it will give reliable informa-
tion in regard to the best chances for success in
all walks of life in every part of this country —
and in other countries. It will tell where doc-
tors, lawyers, teachers, are most needed and
best paid; what sort of material is in demand
by newspapers, magazines, publishers, and
play-producers, and what is paid for it; what
inventions are wanted and how the inventor can
get the most out of them; what Civil Service
positions are open and how one must go to
work to get one.
The Nautilus is the creation and exclusive
property of Mrs. Elizabeth Towne, although
Mrs. Towne's husband is associated with her
in its editorial and business management.
Eleven years ago Mrs. Towne, then Mrs.
Joseph Holt Struble, with $30 borrowed
capital, and a promise of $30 more monthly
for six months if she should need it, began
publishing a four-page pamphlet in her own
home in Portland, Oregon. At that time
Mr. William E. Towne was doing a small busi-
ness in New Thought literature in Holyoke,
Massachusetts. He wrote to the editor of the
new periodical for advertising rates, and a cor-
respondence sprang up between the two.
Two years later Mrs. Struble, whose marriage
had not proved happy, took her two children
and her magazine and started for Holyoke,
stopping just long enough at Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, to get a divorce. As soon as she
reached Holyoke, she married Mr. Towne,
and the two started in business together.
The partnership prospered, and The Nautilus
which had already begun to attract attention,
grew rapidly. To-day it has a circulation of
31,000 and is a business success. In addition
to the magazine, the Townes publish Mrs.
Towne's books and pamphlets, of which " Just
How to Wake the Solar Plexus" is well up
toward its hundredth thousand. Mrs. Towne
estimates that she has reached more than two
fand a half million readers in the last three
years.
Mr. and Mrs. Towne are known to The
Nautilus circle as "William" and " Elizabeth,"
and Mrs. Towne talks to her readers as if
they were members of her family.
To a correspondent signing himself "A
Weakling" she replies: "The trouble with
you and with all other weaklings is that you sit
still and let the thought-power evaporate
through your skulls — and run off your tongues
— instead of directing it down through the
nerves and muscles of your bodies where it is
needed and will do some good. But this is
hard work. It's so much easier to sit around
and let thought run over at the top in imagina-
tion and chatter — so much easier to sit around
and lament one's weakness. There's no excuse
for a weak body. Persistent use will develop
any unmaimed body. Go in to win, and stick
to it."
Upon every form of self-pity Mrs. Towne
turns an implacable face. "Misunderstood"
and "sensitive" souls writing to her for sym-
pathy get instead a vigorous scolding. Work
— use of faculty — is her sovereign remedy for
all ills.
"Get your thought into action to-day," she
says, "or it may spoil to-morrow and spoil you
the day after."
Mrs. Towne got her idea for the name of
the magazine from Holmes's poem, "The
Chambered Nautilus," the last stanza of which
appears on the first page of every issue:
" Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul!
As the swift seasons roll
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting
sea."
"The nautilus," says Mrs. Towne, "is a
first-class evolutionist. He has a very small
beginning and believes in no end of growth.
He is not a mush of concession like the jelly-
fish around him. He builds himself a nice
little shell, just large enough, and retires into it
when danger is near. He doesn't fight and
he doesn't run away. He rests secure in his
own 'armor of good.' In the meantime he
grows. He's bright enough to know when he
is growing, so he evolves from within himself
a new and larger home to live in. When
he is ready to move, he moves, but he doesn't
straightway scorn his old abiding-place. Oh,
no. He has built his new and larger man-
sion on to the front of the old one, and when he
moves into the new he puts up a nice little par-
tition with an air chamber within, and behold,
the old shell acts as a buoy and helps him to rise
in the world! " This epitomizes very well The
Nautilus philosophy.
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THE LITERATURE OF "NEW THOUGHTERS
1247*
Mrs. Towne is not an uneducated woman,
as her off-hand style of writing sometimes
leads people to think, but she is a self-educated
woman. When she was fourteen she left
school to be married, but a strong intellectual
curiosity drove her to read all the books that
she could lay her hands on. The libraries of
three ministers were at her disposal, and for
several years she studied religious literature —
especially the Bible and Bible commentaries.
Later she got hold of Helmholtz and Huxley,
and began to take an interest in science.
Since then she has procured whatever knowl-
edge she has needed for her work, but has
kept clear of academic training.
In only one of her books has she attempted
any abstract metaphysical speculation and
that is in her first, "The Constitution of
Man." Since then she has devoted herself
to work of a strictly practical character, as
the titles of her books indicate. Here are a
few of them: "How to Grow Success;" "How
to Train Parents and Children;" "Practical
Methods for Self-Development;" "The Life
Power and How to Use It."
Among the regular contributors to The
Nautilus are Edwin Markham, Ella Wheeler
Wilcox, Grace MacGowan Cooke, and Florence
Morse Kingsley. Its advertising often covers
as many as twenty pages — but on this point
The Nautilus is sensitive. Like most of the
other New Thought periodicals, it prints
the alluring promises of an endless variety
of "food scientists," "drugless healers,"
" mechano - therapists," " beauty - culturists,"
"esoteric centres," "psychics," "cures," and
correspondence courses. Unlike the others,
however, it prints in every issue a guarantee
to make good the loss sustained by any sub-
scriber through advertising matter contained
in its pages.
New Thought has been a financial success for
a number of years and has recently been
enlarged and strengthened by a consolidation
with Welttner's Magazine 0} Suggestive Thera-
peutics, a fairly successful publication, devoted
chiefly to propagating the ideas of "Professor"
S. A. Weltmer, head of an institute of suggestive
therapeutics at Nevada, Missouri, and of
Ernest Weltmer, a student of mental telepathy.
Both the Weltmers have joined the staff
of New Thought. "Professor" Weltmer is
giving a course of lessons in health and success,
and Ernest Weltmer is conducting a class in
mental telepathy.
Every Thursday the members of the class
concentrate their minds during the day upon
thoughts of health, happiness, and pros-
perity, and in the evening between 9:00 and
9:30 they place themselves in a receptive
state to receive a message sent out to them
by "Professor" Weltmer. Results are re-
ported to Ernest Weltmer, and published in
the following issue of the magazine. Accord-
ing to the August number, many persons have
received a general sense of benefit but as yet
none have got the exact words of the mes-
sage. But this, says Mr. Weltmer, must not
be regarded as indicative of possibilities, as
the class is still unorganized and uninstructed.
The experiments, he states emphatically and in
large print, are absolutely free in every branch
and detail, their sole objects being to benefit
the members of the class and to collect reliable
data for scientific deductions.
The consolidation has established new and
artistically furnished offices in Chicago, where
New Thought literature is on sale and where
the woman member of the editorial staff,
Louise Radford Wells, holds informal recep-
tions to New Thought people every Thurs-
day afternoon.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox writes for New
Thought, as well as for The Nautilus; and
Professor Horatio W. Dresser, an assistant in
philosophy at Harvard University, who enjoys
the reputation of being the most scholarly
of the New Thought writers, is a regular
contributor.
Unity, of Kansas City, is a small magazine
with a large following. It is one of the oldest
of the self-help brand of periodicals, having
been established more than twenty years ago.
It is described by its editor, Charles Fillmore,
as a "magazine of Pentecostal power, a verit-
able Pool of Bethesda that spiritualizes and
heals its readers." It is more religious in
character than the others of its class and is
largely devoted to interpreting the Scriptures
from the point of view of the mind-healing
philosophy.
It is published by the Unity Tract Society,
which also issues Wee Wisdom, a magazine
for children, a leaflet called "The Signs that
Follow," and numbers of books and tracts.
The company owns a fine, modern building
with auditorium and classrooms where meet-
ings, classes, and healing clinics are held daily.
Most of the work is supported by free-will
offerings.
Digitized by V^OOQlC
12474
THE LITERATURE OF "NEW THOUGHTERS"
Readers of the magazine form "The Society
of Silent Unity," now nearly nineteen years old.
This Society has more than 16,000 members.
Every day at noon and every evening at nine
o'clock they go apart for a few moments and
meditate on the "class thought" sent out by
the magazine each month. The "Thought"
for the noon meditation in a recent number
was: "They shall prosper that love Thee;" for
the evening meditation: "In God I live and
move and have my being." Each member
goes by his own local time, "the Spirit adjust-
ing all geographical differences." No fees
for membership are exacted, but members are
asked to make voluntary contributions to
defray expenses. Every month the magazine
prints testimonials as to the value of this
practice. A recent issue contained a letter
taking out a subscription for one hundred
years. An editorial note said that a check was
enclosed.
Another old and established periodical is
the Metaphysical Magazine, edited and pub-
lished by Edmund Leander Whipple, of New
York. The price of this magazine is more than
twice that of any other of its kind. Its articles
are not designed to make a popular appeal.
Primarily, the theory rather than the practice
of mind-healing interests Mr. Whipple, and
consequently his audience is limited. It is
faithful, however, and the magazine continues
to go to a select circle of readers year after
year.
The Psycho-Occult Digest, of Dayton, Ohio,
successor to the Suggester and Thinker, the
Psychic Digest and the Occult Review of
Reviews, is not so imposing as its name. It
is edited by a physician, Dr. Robert Sheerin,
and most of its contributors write " M. D."
after their names. It is described by its editor
as "a popular magazine devoted to investiga-
tion of practical psychology, suggestive thera-
peutics, and New Thought; as well as to
research into occult and psychic phenomena,
hypnotism, telepathy, spiritism, dreams, and
visions."
Smaller magazines, devoted wholly to mind-
healing or concerned largely with it, are scat-
tered all over the country. Some of them are:
The Washington News Letter, the organ of the
Evangelical Christian Science Church and
advertised as "an exponent of Christology,"
published by Oliver C. Sabin, of Washington,
D. C; Practical Ideals, Dr. J. W. Winkley,
Boston; The Optimist, the Optimist Company,
New York; The Magazine of Mysteries, Charles
E. Ellis, New York; The Stellar Ray, Henry
Clay Hodges, Detroit, Michigan; The Busi-
ness Philosopher, A. F. Sheldon, Libertyville,
Illinois; The World? s Advanced Thought,
Lucy A. Mallory, Portland, Oregon; The New
Age Magazine, Frederick P. Fairfield, Boston;
and Das Wort, a German periodical published
by H. H. Schroeder, in St. Louis.
In Denver, long a centre of mind-cure prop-
aganda in general, and the home of the Divine
Science movement, in particular, there are
no less than five of these publications. One
of them, The Christian, is in its sixteenth
year. It enjoys a somewhat unusual reputa-
tion, considering its small size, on account of the
forceful style of its editor and publisher,
Thomas J. Shelton. Here is a sample of Mr.
Shelton's writing taken from the cover of the
last number of his magazine:
"Friendship! Make friends with mammon.
Money is a great friend. It all belongs to you.
Make friends with it. Hold no enmity, and
you will have no enemies. Antagonizing
thought hurts. Above all, make friends in
your mind. Shake hands with your thoughts.
Call all your thoughts good. Don't array one
thought against another. Have no war in
your mind. Eternal friendship with every-
thing! Shake, Old Universe! Let all of us
shake hands with God."
The Swastika, edited by Mclvor TyndaJl,
deals with all sorts of mystical, occult, and
psychic matters, as well as with mind-healing.
It boasts of having among its contributors
Yono Simado, " the only Japanese philosophical
writer in this country;" Saint Nihal Sing, "the*
famous young Hindu journalist and traveler ;"
and Yanoske Isoda, a Buddhist priest. The
Swastika is young, but it is growing fast.
The Balance has passed through various
vicissitudes, but has now been reorganized and
placed upon a new basis, of which the editors
have great hopes. It is advertised as "a
journal devoted to higher ideals, monistic phil-
osophy, and advanced thought." Power and
The Science Quarterly are the organs of the
Divine Science Church.
The Christian Science Publishing Society,
of Boston, officially created as such by the
Christian Science Church, publishes (in addi-
tion to the Christian Science text-book,
"Science and Health," and other Christian
Science books, pamphlets, and tracts) five
periodicals, one of which is a daily paper.
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THE LITERATURE OF "NEW THOUGHTERS"
12475
The Christian Science Monitor is said to
have more than half a million subscribers.
Its plant is one of the most perfect in
the world. Its contents are a rebuke to the
secular journals, for The Monitor prints
the news — prints it all and in good style
— but free from those details of murders,
accidents, crimes, and scandals that so often
carry harmful suggestions to susceptible or
youthful minds. A great many Bostonians
who are not Christian Scientists take The
Monitor because they think it more fit to go
into their homes than any other Boston daily.
The Christian Science Journal is a monthly
magazine containing, in addition to regular
articles, a list of the Christian Science churches,
reading-rooms, practitioners, and nurses
throughout the world. A weekly, The Chris-
tian Science Sentinel, gives news of the move-
ment and testimonials of healing. The Quar-
terly contains the lesson-sermons read at the
services in the Christian Science churches
for every Sunday in the year. Der Herold
Der Christian Science, a monthly, presents in
German a selected assortment of all these
features.
Of the books on self-help, those of Horatio
W. Dresser and Henry Wood most nearly
approach accepted standards of philosophic
writing. Mr. Dresser has been for many
years an assistant in philosophy at Harvard,
and his works — some twenty in all — are
written in the current philosophic language.
His interest in the mind-healing movement is,
in a sense, hereditary, his father and mother
having both been patients and pupils of
Phineas Parker Quimby, the first man to
practice mind-healing in this country. Mr.
Wood, who, to quote his obituaries, "ceased
recently to live in the body," was also a Bos-
tonian. He helped to organize the Meta-
physical Club of Boston fifteen years ago and
he wrote a number of books that are regarded
as among the classics of the movement.
But for every one who reads Mr. Wood or
Mr. Dresser, there are at least ten who read
Ralph Waldo Trine and Floyd B. Wilson.
These writers are usually recommended to
beginners in New Thought because their
works are free from just those qualities which
make the books of Mr. Wood and Mr. Dresser
so highly esteemed. They are "practical."
They talk very little of the theory but a great
deal of the application. Mr. Trine has writ-
ten several books, but the one that has made
his reputation, "In Tune with the Infinite,"
remains the most popular. It has run through
several editions and is still in great demand.
Of Mr. Wilson's books, "Paths to Power" is
perhaps the most popular, although "Man
Limitless," "Through Silence to Realization,"
and "The Discovery of the Soul" are also
"good sellers."
Charles Brodie Patterson, a lecturer and
healer of some twenty-five years' experience in
New York, has half a dozen full-sized volumes
to his credit, one of which, "The Will to be
Well," is now in its fifth edition. William W.
Atkinson, expounder of science in terms of
New Thought, recently brought out an im-
posing volume entitled "Mind Power, or the
Law of Dynamic Mentation," containing 400
pages.
The popular self-help ideas have recently
shown a tendency to escape froiji the boundis
of their own distinctive publications and to
invade general literature. For the last year
or two, Elbert Hubbard has been preaching
them in The Philistine. They are body and
bones of the philosophy which Benjamin Fay
Mills and his staff of distinguished rebels
are exploiting in Fellowship. Orison Swett
Marden — who, by the way, is the author of a
number of out-and-out New Thought books
— presents them in considerable detail in his
editorials in Success. A New York evening
paper prints a daily sermon based upon them.
And last season they were even preached from
the stage.
Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's play, "The
Dawn of a To-morrow," is an undisguised
"preachment" on the transforming power of
faith and optimism. "The Third Degree,"
by Charles Klein, himself a thoroughgoing
Christian Scientist, and Augustus Thomas's
"The Witching Hour," both treat of the ability
of the mind to influence material conditions.
Charles Rann Kennedy's "The Servant in the
House," reflects in a general way the ideas
of the new literature and turns, moreover, upon
one of its typical phrases, "You'll always get
what you want if you only want hard
enough."
"Religion and Medicine," the book writ-
ten by Dr. Elwood Worcester, Dr. Samuel
McComb, and Dr. Isador H. Coriat, to
explain the work of the healing clinic at
Emmanuel Church, is said by its publishers
to have sold better than any of their books
except fiction.
Digitized by V^OOQlC
AMERICAN BUILDERS IN CANADA
THE BIG RAILROADS OF THE DOMINION RULED BY MEN FROM
ILLINOIS AND WISCONSIN— THREE AMERICANS WHO WERE BORN
POOR BUT HAVE WON TITLES AND MILLIONS ACROSS THE BORDER
BY
C M. KEYS
ONE day in 1881, the general super-
intendent of the Milwaukee Rail-
road told his associates that he was
going to quit. He added that he intended to
go North and take a job as general mana-
ger of the Canadian Pacific. Most of his
friends told him that he was crazy; that his
two years' work on the Milwaukee had placed
him in line for swift promotion, and that he
was about to throw away realities for the
sake of a dream.
The Milwaukee was a giant in those days,
as it is to-day, the difference being that there
were not so many other giants in the land
at that time. The Canadian Pacific, on the
other hand, was a sickly infant. Its assets,
so far as human mind could figure, consisted
of a large "pull" at Ottawa, an elastic but
treacherous capital account, and a few hun-
dred miles of new railroad that earned noth-
ing except a floating debt. Its liabilities were
a group of capitalists full of foolhardy notions,
an expensive ambition to build a line of road
through the pathless and profitless prairies
of Northwestern Canada, and an ever-increas-
ing debt as its new rails went down.
But Van Home had made his bed and he
was determined to lie on it, no matter how
uncomfortable it might prove to be. He
packed up his goods and chattels in the winter
of 1881, and moved from Chicago to Mon-
treal. History does not record that it took a
special freight train to move his effects. It
had been fairly hard-sledding from the begin-
ning of his railroad career, and he had no
career before he began his life on the rail.
He was fourteen when he got his first rail-
road job, in 1857, as a telegraph operator on
the Illinois Central at Chicago. He was
pretty nearly twice that age before they made
him superintendent of telegraphs on the old
Alton, and the catalogue of the things that
he did between those years is a long one —
the simple story of a young man who "made
good," and was pushed along slowly from
step to step. It was only nine years later,
and the man was in his prime, when they
called him over the border to be the general
manager of a road under construction.
Once a reporter followed the trail of Van
Home, cornered him, and demanded that he
produce the story of his life. The gist of his
reply is recorded thus:
"I don't believe in autobiographies. I
think Mark Twain is a good judge of the
fitness of things, of the time that should
elapse, as it were, between funeral and flow-
ers. He has just finished writing 'Leaves
from the Life of Adam.'"
So the tale of the making of the man has
not been very well told, as yet; and one may
presume that it can be summarized in the
statement that he dodged both the lock-up and
the Hall of Fame with entire success -during
the twenty-two years of hard work on the rail-
roads of the Middle West. It is on record
that when he was a youngster, working at odd
jobs on the Michigan Central, he was badly
scared by a general order to cut down expenses.
He reasoned that he might be one of the
expenses that would be cut down; so he went
to work from that time on to master every
job that lay within his reach, from telegraph
operator to division clerk.
And so he went to the North, equipped for
anything from handling gangs of half-breed
trackmen to making transportation policies
in conference with George Stephen, Donald
Smith, and Robert Angus — the pioneers of
the new Transcontinental.
From 1881 to 1885, he was the man with the
steam shovel from the Ottawa to the Pacific
Coast. Once in a while he came back to Mon-
treal to cheer the drooping spirits of his chiefs.
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AMERICAN BUILDERS IN CANADA
12477
When the road ran out of money in 1884 —
only one of many times — and despairing
proposition followed desperate appeal from
the Montreal offices to the House at Ottawa
so fast that track of them was hardly kept, he
left his "standing army" of ten thousand men
— who were laying rails on the prairies and
fighting winter snows in the Rockies — to
come back and tell President Stephen to brace
up and make one more attempt.
Things looked bad. In November, 1883,
a desperate scheme to give fictitious value to
the stock of the company had been put through.
The Government, yielding to the melancholy
coaxing of the railroad, had agreed to ensure
the payment of a dividend on the stock, and
the payment had been made. But the stock
went down lower than it was before, and the
stockholders got together in January to hold
a sort of ante-mortem inquest and see what
could be done.
The nerve of some of the pioneers was break-
ing under the strain. The press of the country
was divided. Half of it spent days and nights
devising awful pictures of what was going to
happen to the Canadian Pacific. They talked
of jails and penitentiaries for the promoters.
They talked of ten-foot snow-levels on the
Manitoba prairies, of avalanches in the moun-
tains, of rusting rails — of ruin, blue, black,
and lurid — that dogged the armies of the
builders across the plains and through the
mountain passes.
Even the directors talked of stopping work
for a two-year period, and letting the storm
blow past. The new general manager was not
the only man who stood against the storm; but
he was the most stubborn of the lot. He raged
when they talked of calling off the construction
forces. He laughed at the pictures of ruin
and of poverty that purported to describe the
countries of the North. He knew what the
Northwest was, and he pledged his word over
, and over again that the road would earn money
from the day of its opening through the flat
lands.
Perhaps it was because of his never-failing
smile in the face of circumstances that they
made him vice-president in 1885. Two years
later, he stood behind Strathcona, in a pass of
the Rockies, and watched him drive the golden
spike that made the lines of steel a railroad.
The years had aged him little. They had
turned Strathcona from a black-bearded fron-
tiersman to a white-haired old man, but they
had not made Van Home any thinner than he
was when he left the easy comfort of the
Milwaukee for* the strenuous battle of the
North — and he was never a very thin man.
He loves a fight, this Illinois-Canadian,
and thrives on battle. It was a fixed habit
of the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific
engineers to race into Montreal, and the trains
came in very often side by side across the
city limits at a pace that startled. In time,
the city took action and raised a protest that
reached the president's office.
As a result, a group of passenger engineers
and conductors came up before Van Home
for admonishment. He told them the law
and the city's remarks. He told them that
two warnings on that score meant trouble for
the men in charge of the train. Then, with a
twinkle in his eye, he added:
"But there won't be any warnings at all if
the Grand Trunk crews make you look silly!"
It is hard to vouch for the tales that find
currency concerning any man of size, but
the phrase sounds something like Van Home.
He has a short, crisp, incisive way of using
illustrations that makes his few public utter-
ances good reading. During the same period
of his life he went out to Winnipeg on a trip
of inspection. There was an active agita-
tion going on for a reduction in the ratps on
wheat. A crowd of reporters carried his car
by storm, and asked him whether he intended
to reduce those rates.
"Boys," he said, "I am general manager of
this road, and I like the position. If I did
anything so foolish as to reduce those rates,
the directors would take this position away
from me, and make me station agent at Gravel
River. Have you ever seen Gravel River?"
Time went on, and the fight for life on the
Canadian Pacific gave way to routine, more
or less. The arms of the infant grew stronger.
They reached across the border to take the
Soo Line from the willing hands of its owners,
and to gather up the melancholy fragment
known as the "South Shore Road." Fleets
came into being on the Great Lakes and on
the Pacific. The credit of the company waxed
great, so that the purses of the English middle
classes opened of their own accord whenever
more money was wanted. Respect for the
new giant grew not only in its own country
but across the line as well.
It culminated in the late 'nineties, when the
Hill, Huntington, and other American lines
Digitized by V^OOQlC
12478
AMERICAN BUILDERS IN CANADA
made a pool on traffic out of San Francisco.
They left the Canadian Pacific out. It was
a mistake. There was war. At the end of it,
the transcontinental pool was the flattest thing
in the history of railroading in this country;
and an ancient Scotchman, called David
McNicoll, of the Canadian Pacific, was one of
the most highly respected traffic managers on
the continent
But the peace that followed was too much
for President Van Home. He had been
president for eleven years, had become a
Canadian citizen, had received knighthood
from the hands of Queen Victoria for exem-
plary service to the Empire — and he wanted
what he was pleased to call a rest.
So they made him chairman of the board.
He became known throughout the world as a
retired capitalist, more or less. He began to
collect pictures. Rumor says that he also
began to paint them; but this he denies with
that quizzical, glinting smile. He began to
collect orchids, sending companies of men
into the forests of Asia, Africa, and South
America. He indulged a hobby for curios
and another for farming. He made a stock
ranch at Selkirk, and found joy in winning
prizes at all the fairs of the Northwest. In-
cidentally, he never forgot "the great Ameri-
can game," and he stands in Canada on his
reputation as a poker-player par excellence.
These things kept him quiet for a while; but
there is presently an end of patience when a '
man has built a railroad through the Rocky
Mountains. Easy prosperity soon palled.
Somebody told him about Cuba and Mexico,
and he went there, perhaps from curiosity. He
did not stay very long, but a good deal of his
money is there yet. It went into the Cuba Com-
pany on the island, and into light and power
plants in Mexico. Some say that the Cuba
venture was largely an investment in experi-
ence; but others maintain that it not only has
paid but has made much money for its restless
proprietor. Of these things, the end is not
in sight.
Sir William Van Home is a very rich man,
though probably not comparable with the
giants even of Canada. Probably most of his
money came out of the rise in the value of
Canadian Pacific stock. Some of it, undoubt-
edly? grew with the West, for there is hardly
a Canadian Pacific director who has not, at
times, owned large blocks of farm lands in the
opening country.
There is a Railroad Commission in Canada,
and its task is very much like that of the Inter-
state Commerce Commission in this country,
plus the railroad commissions of all the states
of the Union. One of the members — and he
has a lot to say — is the chairman of the
Canadian Pacific, Sir William Van Home.
They say that he is a good Commissioner;
that seems peculiar to an American citizen.
Yet there are some who think that perhaps if
the regulation of railroads in this country
was in the hands of such men as J. J. Hill,
E. P. Ripley, and W. H. Truesdale, the rail-
roads would be as well regulated as they are
in Canada. All the clean Americans are not
on the payroll of the Canadian Pacific.
There is, however, another. His name is
Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, and he holds now the
position that Van Home held for so many years,
the presidency of the Canadian Pacific. When
he was known to a limited world as Tom
O'Shaughnessy, he was one of the shining
lights of the younger set of the Ninth Ward of
Milwaukee. His father was an honorable
employee of the city — wielding a policeman's
club. The boy passed through the public
school, and then he went to work. It was on
the Milwaukee road, and the job was a humble
one in the purchasing department. He worked
along slowly for ten years, and at the end of
that time he was general storekeeper for the
same railroad. That was the position he held
in 1882. Two years before, he had married
a girl of his youth, Elizabeth Bridget Nagley.
Fate seemed to have marked him as a man
who would work very hard and do fairly
well in the business of making a living.
Then a curious thing happened. Van
Home had gone the winter before to Montreal
to work for the Canadian people. He ran
out of raw material, and came to the Mil-
waukee to look for it. He wanted a pur-
chasing agent, so he went to the purchasing
department. He had one of the biggest pur-
chasing positions in the world to fill, for the '
railroad that is building is buying all the time,
and much depends on the buyer. He picked
out Shaughnessy. He made him a propo-
sition. It was accepted. Shaughnessy went
to Montreal in October, 1882, as purchasing
agent of the Canadian Pacific.
Through the long battle fought by Van
Home for the making of the road, the Irish-
American from Milwaukee stood solidly beside
his chief. Van Home conceived the broad
Digitized by VjOOQ
AMERICAN BUILDERS IN CANADA
12479
outlines of a big plan. Shaughnessy worked
out the details. Van Home and his battalions
built a road; Shaughnessy learned to know
it foot by foot. As a master of detail, as an
executive genius down to the smallest and
most intricate minutiae of railroad operation,
he fitted into and filled out the genius of his
chief. The two became one. In the years
when Van Home was president and
Shaughnessy assistant to the president, the
two were the head of the Canadian Pacific
Railroad.
From the fragmentary facts here written
one might assume that the president of the
Canadian Pacific is merely an echo of his pred-
ecessor, the chairman of the board. It is
very far from being true. It never was true,
even in the years when he was assistant general
manager, assistant to the president, and
assistant president, with Sir William in the
various title rdles.
The two men are distincdy unlike. Sir
William is big, stout, congenial, and jolly.
His smile is contagious. Sir Thomas is slight
of build, aquiline of feature, cold and for-
bidding at casual acquaintance, mechanical
of speech and manner — a man immersed in
business. As a reporter I found something
in common between him and Mr. Harriman.
Sir William Van Home, on the contrary, is
more like Mr. James J. Hill.
When Sir Thomas became president of the
Canadian Pacific, he went right on with the
Van Home policies. Only, he does not care
for war. The very centre of his policy is assimi-
lation, not conquest. There have been no
spectacular raids by f.:e Canadian Pacific.
Before a step is taken, every result is weighed,
every detail worked out with mathematical
precision, every pro and con considered.
Then an order goes out; it is carried into effect.
The results flow forth just as planned. In his
day, the result has not yet been a traffic war.
Treaties, compromises, adjustments — these take
the place of pitched battles, contests for traffic,
rival railroad-building on a profidess basis.
His life work is the filling of the West with
people. He recognized that as the one reason
for the existence of the Canadian Pacific. He
went about it systematically. One could not
imagine anything haphazard in his methods.
The Canadian Pacific has covered the world
with its advertising. Its agents are all over
Europe, wherever men till the fields for small
gain. Its net spreads across the steppes of
Russia as perfecdy as it covers the city of
London. Its literature — sane, conservative,
and fairly accurate — is translated into every
tongue spoken in the agricultural regions of the
continent.
It is likely that there has never been in the
history of the world so complete a machine
for colonization. Bureaus of information are
maintained at the expense of this railroad at
central points throughout the world. Lines
of communication are open at all times for the
transportation of men coming to see the land.
Accommodation by land and sea is always
at the command of the immigrant to Canada.
Land they can get, if they want it The
Canadian Pacific, the biggest land-owner in
the world, sees to that. They have to pay for
most of it nowadays, for the era of free land is
going fast. They do it, however, on the
instalment plan. The railroad sells them land
and lets them pay for it out of the proceeds of
the crops; they pay 6 per cent, on all the debt.
Nowadays, the chief at Montreal does not
handle the details of all the multifarious busi-
ness that goes on under the charter of the
railroad. If he did, he would be the busiest
man on earth; for this road is a trust of a strange
sort. It runs a railroad or two. It conducts
chains of the biggest hotels in Canada, and
runs them well. It runs an express company,
a slaughter-house, a telegraph system, half a
dozen fleets, car and engine-building plants,
some of the biggest coal-mining concerns in
the country, and a dozen other activities more
or less closely connected with the usual busi-
ness of a railroad.
The actual carrying on of all this business
is given into the hands of men chosen by the
president. He frames up the project, starts
it going, and demands from the men who take
its authority the best results possible. They
may make mistakes. One is passed without
more than comment; two bring a cold and
uncomfortable conversation; three are fatal.
There never have been very many sinecures
in the organization of the Canadian Pacific;
but to-day there are none. In this respect,
the Canadian Pacific is a duplicate of the
so-called Harriman system in this country.
The president works pretty hard, just as he
always has. In Canada, they credit Sir Thomas
with having made quite a bit of money in recent
years. His fortune, however, is not reckoned
as swollen. There are probably half a dozen
of his directors who have more money and
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AMERICAN BUILDERS IN CANADA
more property; but yet he is comfortable. He
has dealt in Western farm lands, and a favor-
ite amusement seems to be the buying and
selling of city property in Montreal — not
a bad way to make money if one happens to
know the game. He knows it
People who know him best say that the
president of the Canadian Pacific could not
read a stock-ticker if he had a chance to see it.
So far as one may judge, he does not know
much more than the meaning of a margin
account, and speculation in the stocks of his
own road would seem a capital offense. No
doubt he owns some of the stock, and no doubt
it cost him much less than its price to-day; but
that is hardly speculation.
There is not so much red tape about the
Canadian Pacific as there is about most things
in Canada, but the president's office is no open
house, for all that. Reporters do not make
free in it, as they do in so many American
offices of the same rank. The president is
not a great " mixer," though democratic enough
with people he knows. His replies to ques-
tions, like his orders to his secretary, are short
and specific. His interviews are short and
infrequent. He is pretty well buried in busi-
ness, and the amenities of gossip occupy a most
unimportant place in his philosophy.
In the same city where these two titled sons
of the Middle West now have their homes and
sway their railroad kingdom, there lives another
native-born American. Like Van Home, he
came from Illinois. Rock Island was his
birthplace. He used to be a stenographer on
the lines that fell to the hand of the late Jay
Gould, and he stuck to them consistently until,
at last, they made him general manager of the
Wabash. That was the place he held when the
English, seeing what the Canadian Pacific
had gotten in Van Home and Shaughnessy,
decided to secure an American official for the
old Grand Trunk.
His name is Charles Melville Hays. His
mission in life is to rescue moribund railroads.
When he was general manager of the Wabash,
it was one of the sickest collections of junk
that ever passed as a railroad. He almost
cured it. When they took him over into
Canada, the Grand Trunk Railway was a
melancholy imitation of a transportation agent.
In a little more than four years he almost put
it on its feet Then Edwin Hawley and the
Huntington people invited him to comfe over
and run the Southern Pacific, then rapidly
going to pieces. He came. That was his first
railroad presidency. It happened in 1901.
The same year he resigned. He did not
know, when he came back, that he was going to
be somebody's hired man. He thought that
he was going to be president When he
found out his mistake, he wired a resignation.
He left the next summer, with the three years'
pay that his contract called for. Mr. L. F.
Loree did much the same thing, in 1904, with
the Rock Island.
The English called him back to the old
Grand Trunk. They had seen a great light.
They used to run the Grand Trunk from
London and the results showed it. The fact
that it wh& alive at all spoke whole volumes
for the excellence of the country it traversed.
It was loaded with sons, sons-in-law, uncles,
nephews, cousins, and aunts of the British
aristocracy. If its titled stockholders and
directors gathered no dividends, they at least
got rid of a good many expensive relatives.
The new general manager had started right
in at the beginning to clean out the debris;
but some of it had been there a long time, and
it stuck. Some of it is there yet, but only the
best of it. Long since, the offices ceased to be
a dumping-ground for British impedimenta.
The change came with Hays. The first
three years that he worked for the Grand Trunk
were hard. He spent a lot of time in London,
trying to tell the people of the Grand Trunk
that they had to spend money or the Canadian
Pacific would wreck their road by competition.
He did persuade them before he left the road
to go to the Southern Pacific, to double-track
the line from Montreal to Chicago. That work
was under way when he came back in 1901.
It was followed by the outpouring of millions
for new cars and engines, other millions for
more double-track down to Buffalo, yet more
money for bridges that could carry the big-
ger trains, and then more money for yet bigger
trains.
The man was insatiable. He wanted a mile-
a-minute schedule from Boston to Chicago.
He nearly got it. He rebuilt every main line
on the system from Portland to Chicago,
re-equipped the whole road, and set stan-
dards of train service, both passenger and
freight, that the cautious yet daring Canadian
Pacific has not tried to exceed. He went to
the limit. Perhaps, at times, he went over it.
The discipline and the physical condition
of the old railroad fretted him, but they were
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things that could be remedied. He went
at them, and remedied them. But there was a
more serious matter, and it took a good many
years of thought and a whole lot of courage
before anything could be done about it.
The road was truncated. It began at the
Atlantic Coast, ran all over Ontario like a cob-
web, reached the Chicago markets on a long,
thin line of track through a fairly good country
— and there it ended. It was cut off from the
growing country of Canada. It had no line
to the West. It used to carry a limited amount
of traffic up to the Georgian Bay ports and to
North Bay, and lose it to the tramp steamers
of the Lakes and to the Canadian Pacific.
Hays saw the end of the old Grand Trunk
unless it did something radical.
The thing that it did was staggering. Hays
went to Ottawa, and talked about a new rail-
road across the continent, closely connected
with the old Grand Trunk. He wanted to
know what the Liberal Government would do
that would stand alongside the Canadian
Pacific, built under the Conservative Govern-
ment regime. It took persuasion, and a good
substantial lobby had to be overcome; but the
end was accomplished.
The Liberal Government went to the people
on a platform that called for a new railroad
from Atlantic to Pacific. The people said:
"Go ahead." The Government made a con-
tract to build the eastern line from Moncton to
Winnipeg; and the Grand Trunk contracted
to build the rest of the line. Nobody knows
to this day what it is going to cost, but every-
body knows by this time that it will cost more
than twice the original estimates on which
the election was won.
That does not matter much. From Hays'
point of view, the important thing is the rail-
road. He is going to have it pretty soon. It
runs north of the Canadian Pacific, out in the
provinces, and in Ontario it traverses a region
of unknown and untouched resources. The
Government publications concerning it read
like a miner's prospectus. The truth can only
be guessed. It may be that the ambition of
Mr. Hays, a plain American citizen from
Illinois, has plunged Canada into excesses; and
it may not be. It is one of to-morrow's stories.
This American in Canada has grown very
big indeed. He was a private figure until the
Grand Trunk Pacific became a public issue;
and since then he has been one of the most
striking figures in the whole realm of national
life in Canada. Personally, it has changed him
not at all. He is still a plain Democrat, ready-
handed, pleasant to meet, straightforward in
talk, strong in conviction. He is not pic-
turesque, and he has few activities outside
the running of his railroad. That keeps him
busy, particularly since he has his thousands
at work on the new lines.
They say that before many years go by, if all
is well, there will be a new American knight
in Canada; but to date Mr. Hays has gathered
neither titles nor millions. He does not seem
to care very much about either. He seems to
be content if the showing of his railroad is
better year by year, and if he gets just what
he wants, whether it is permission to lay a
few hundred miles of double track or a few
thousand miles of single track across the con-
tinent. His personal friendships are amazing.
His hold over his stockholders and directors
is beyond explanation. Men who know him
best put it down to the mere magnetism of the
man; but the basis of it seems to be hard work
and perfect knowledge. When he goes into
a crowded Grand Trunk meeting in London,
he can answer every question asked. He
knows the road as Shaughnessy knows the
Canadian Pacific Railroad, or better.
These are strong men, these three exiles.
They have few equals in the railroad world
on either side of the border. As executive
officers they have no superiors anywhere.
The only other railroad men in Canada who
stand on anything like an equal footing with
them are Mr. William McKenzie and Mr. D.
D. Mann, of the Canadian Northern — both
Canadians.
There is a tariff wall between Canada and
the United States, but railroad brains pass
free across the border. The long list of big
railroad men on American railroads who came
from Canada is always headed with the names
of Mr. James J. Hill and the late S. R. Calla-
way, who left the presidency of the New York
Central to take the presidency of the American
Locomotive Company. There are hundreds of
others. One is found running the telegraph
department of the Isthmus of Panama, and
another running the signal department of the
Great Northern; and in between, geographi-
cally speaking, they are scattered like beads on
a string. On the whole, in the merry game of
reciprocity, it is probably a safe guess that the
United States has gained in the commerce of
railroad brains across the Canadian border.
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THIRD ARTICLE
A LOST OPPORTUNITY ON THE PACIFIC
HOW THE UNITED STATES BEGAN TO CAPTURE THE TRADE OF THE
ORIENT — HOW IT WAS LOST— WHAT CAN BE DONE TO RECAPTURE IT
BY
JAMES J, HILL
THE history of our trade with the Orient
is a tale of lost opportunity. Yet
so much more popular are facts that
tickle our pride than those hinting of neglect
or mistake that comparatively few people
to-day appreciate what this opportunity was,
and to what extent and why we have lost it.
The trade with the Orient is the oldest and
most prized among men. Its origin and its
value go back to the dawn of history. It
built up many cities of an older world that are
now heaps of ruins. For a time Byzantium
enjoyed it, and to some extent by virtue of that
fact became the capital of the East. Later on
Venice, the city of merchant princes, was built
upon the same commercial foundation, and for
years that was the gateway through which
Eastern traffic entered Europe. When the
Portuguese and the Spaniards sent their ships
around the Cape of Good Hope, they took
possession of this trade and transferred it from
the backs of camels to their galleons. From
them it passed under the control of the Han-
seatic League, to the great free cities and free
merchants of Europe.
Early in the last century Great Britain,
following a far-seeing policy inaugurated by
her ablest statesmen, took possession of this
trade and has retained the lion's share of it
to the present time. Her conquest of India gave
her a foothold; her. occupation of it a better
understanding of the Orientals, their needs and
methods; and because, through her enterprise
and the breadth of her interests, she was able
to furnish the most abundant and cheapest
means of transportation to and from the
Orient, she has held her own until recently
against all comers. The richness, the stability,
the profitableness of this traffic have appealed
to all nations. Might not the United States
in its turn become first a sharer and after-
ward, perhaps, the director of this coveted
commerce?
From the time when a northern trans-con-
tinental railroad line was completed, this
became a possibility. Across the Pacific
Ocean, nearer by several hundred miles than
it had ever been brought before, lay the trade
empire that had been in communication with
the rest of the world for so long by caravans
across forbidding deserts, by long and dan-
gerous voyages around the Cape of Good Hope
or, in later days, by the still costly and tedious
Suez route. The teas and silks, the rice and
matting of China, of Japan and India, are
marketed all over the world. They will con-
tinue to be bought and sold and transported;
and millions of people in those countries will,
as they progress, buy ever more and more
largely in other markets. This oldest branch
of trade seemed also to promise the greatest
modern expansion. The short and direct
route across the north Pacific from Puget
Sound to Japan and China would save both
time and -cost in transportation.
THE DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY FOR US
Conditions were favorable for a new com-
mercial epoch in the relations of the Orient
to the outside world. Not only might its people
find advantage in dealing more largely with us
than with other nations, but a large part of
the vast stream of their commerce might be
deflected at its origin, so as to turn eastward
across the Pacific instead of westward across
Asia or through the Indian Ocean, If this
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should prove feasible, the United States
would gain an advantage not easily to be
overestimated; would realize a dream that
has held the minds of men since the time of
Alexander the Great. It was the strategic
moment, the opening of that doorway of
opportunity for which men and nations wait.
To reverse one of the great currents of
traffic, to secure markets among people little
accustomed to trade with us, to get the com-
plicated machinery for such a development
into place and working order required study,
AN AMERICAN SHIP DRIVEN FROM THE PACIFIC
Unable to compete with foreign vessels in carrying American goods out
of American ports, the Shautnut and her sister-ship, the Trcmont, were
sold to the Government. They are now the Colon and the Christobal
preparation, the most careful adjustment of
means to ends.
A study of the lumber trade revealed the
first favorable opening. When the railways
reached Puget Sound (the Great Northern
was completed through to the Coast in 1893.
From that time the extension of American
trade with the Orient was pushed vigorously
in all directions), they found there the
largest supply of standing timber in the world.
For this there was at that time but a limited
market. It reached the outer world only in
A JAPANESE LINER
There are two Japanese steamship companies subsidized by their
government which maintain a regular service from Seattle to the Orient
A BRITISH TRAMP
One of the many which make a profit carrying American good* from
our Pacific ports free from rate regulation and other restrictions
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SEATTLE HARBOR BEFORE THE RAILROADS OPENED THE ORIENTAL TRADE
There were no steamer docks and the commerce — mostly lumber — was carried in sailing vessels
the small quantities that sailing vessels carried
up and down the coast or to foreign ports.
The freight rate to the East, where alone it
could be sold extensively, where the demand
for it was greatest, was ninety cents per hun-
dred pounds. This was prohibitive. The
question was how to make a rate low enough
to bring this lumber to the prairie country and
the Mississippi valley. It could be done only
by securing an ample and steady volume of
traffic in both directions, so that neither east-
bound nor westbound cars should be hauled
empty. Low rates can be made only if cars
moving in each direction are loaded.
At that time the westbound business was
heavier than the eastbound, and empty cars
SEATTLE HARBOR, WITH THREE FOREIGN SHIPS IN THE FOREGROUND
Besides the tramps, practically all of which arc foreign, the following foreign lines operate from Seattle: Japanese:
Nippon- Yusen-Kaisha, and Osaka-Shoshen-Kaisha; English: Blue Funnel Line, and Bank Line; German: Kosmos
Line, and the line of Grace Brothers, who usually charter Norwegian and English ships. The Minnesota, of the Great
Northern Steamship Company, is the only American liner that comes to Seattle
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were coming east, on which lumber might be
carried. When the lumber business should be
developed into a heavy traffic, then the balance
would turn in the other direction. Then west-
bound business would have to be increased
again, else empty cars would be traveling
nearly two thousand miles to the Pacific Coast.
While the local development of the coast coun-
try was sure to be great, it would net supply
sufficient volume of business at that time to
equalize traffic. A market for our products
in the Orient, if it could be built up, would not
only do this but would be of the utmost value to
every interest in this country.
What material was there out of which to
create such a trade? Japan is small and
once accustomed to the wheat loaf are slow to
give it up. And the dense population would
make consumption large. Both countries
bought their cotton goods mostly from Europe.
We might divide that trade or capture it. It
was clear that, on the first close contact with
the modern world, these races, with their cheap
labor and their lively industrial skill, would
soon begin to manufacture for themselves.
They might get their machinery from us; they
would come to us for a portion of their raw
cotton. Until their manufacturing industry
should be well developed, they would depend
upon us to a considerable extent for their iron
and steel.
The total purchases outside of their own
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THE "MIIKE MARU" — THE FIRST JAPANESE LINER INTO SEATTLE
Which arrived in August, 1896. In the decade between 1893 (when the Great Northern Railroad was completed to
the Coast) and 1903 the Puget Sound exports increased from $5,085,958 to $32,410,369 — nearly 540 per cent.
densely populated and cannot feed its own
inhabitants. There we might find customers
for our foodstuffs. Russia even at that time,
when her power on the Pacific seemed secure
and was enlarging, would scarcely be a large
buyer. China is a marvelously rich country,
both for agriculture and in mineral resources.
The Chinese are intelligent, good farmers,
imitative, industrious, and painstaking as only
a people so gifted and so patient can be. They
are also good traders. We must look for our
market to the men who live in the most densely
populated portions, along the sea. India
was at once too distant and too poor to furnish
a demand worth considering. But the Japan-
ese and Chinese could be made customers for
our flour in increasing quantity. A people
countries made by all the people living on the
borders of the Pacific, including Oceania,
amount to a billion and three quarters annually.
Great Britain handles nearly one-fourth of
this entire business. Although nearly all con-
sists of commodities that the United States
could furnish, we get about one-twentieth of it.
Although our foreign trade is mostly done with
the markets of Europe, we sell fewer manu-
factures there than the republics of South
America buy from Europe. On the other side
of the account are exports of silk, tea, matting,
and other Oriental products; not only the large
quantities consumed in this country, coming to
us by the Suez Canal and paying toll to the
foreign importer and the foreign carrier; but
the very supply of Europe itself, which we
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COTTON FOR THE ORIENT VTA PUGET SOUND
For the twelve months ending June, 1009, the United States sold
Japan $10,614,249 worth of raw cotton, a large amount of which went
across the continent over the northern route via St. Paul and Seattle
might be in position, with a low freight rate
and an established trade, to bring over the
Pacific, portage across the continent, and
LOADING 8,300 TONS OF FLOUR ON THE "MINNESOTA"
Last year the United States exported $1,030,188 worth of flour to
Japan, and $3,534.95° to Hongkong. It is estimated that the Oriental
trade raised the price of American wheat from five to seven cents a bushel
deliver at European ports, thus wresting from
the other half of the world a portion of the
traffic that has been the prize of centuries.
TEA FROM JAPAN
In the year ending June, 1009, the United States paid Japan $9,000,554
for tea — almost as much as we received from Japan for raw cotton
JAPANESE SILK AT SEATTLE
Almost $50,000,000 worth of silk — both raw and manufactured — was
imported by the United States from Japan from June, 1908, to June, 1909
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12489
The best route, the traffic machinery to
operate it, the market with its demand expand-
ing in both directions — these were the con-
ditions that opened to this country fifteen
years ago such a commercial possibility as has
rarely presented itself to any nation in history.
Copyright. 1907, by H. C. White Co.
CHINA AS A MARKET FOR AMERICAN GOODS
An American locomotive at the walls of Peking. In 1908-9 eight locomotives from the United States were sold in
China and five in Japan. The Baldwin Locomotive Works alone, however, have supplied the Imperial Railways of
Japan with more than too locomotives in the last five years
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OREGON PINE IN CHINA
Part of the $420,000 worth of American lumber and wood manu-
factured which China (including Hong Kong) imported last year
Costly wars have been waged and provinces
desolated for advantages not half so attractive
or so real.
A SIGN OF ORIENTAL AWAKENING
An automobile in Perak (Federated Malay states) owned by a China-
man. The East is beginning to demand highly manufactured articles
So the effort was made to turn this concep-
tion into a business fact. For several years
before that, the Orient as a market was
THE ORIENT A MARKET FOR AMERICAN PRODUCTS
China imported $8,000,000 worth of American cotton doth between June, 1908, and June, 1909
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1 2491
A CIGARETTE STAND OF THE BRITISH-AMERICAN COMPANY AT MUKDEN
In the fiscal year ending June, 1909, the United States exported $947,725 worth of cigarettes to China
AMERICAN COTTON IN THE ORIENT
The two big items of our exports to China are cheap cotton-cloth and oil; and to Japan, raw cotton and oil — more the
products of our natural resources than of our skill as manufacturers
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Copyright. 1904, by b. L, Stnglcy
JAPANESE, TO WHOM WE MIGHT SELL FOOD
Japan is small, and so thickly populated that it cannot feed its
people. Including Hokkaido, with its sparse population, Japan has
317 people per square mile. The picture shows two families at work
on their rice fields, which arc often no larger than a quarter of an acre
carefully and thoroughly studied. At different
times agents of the railroads investigated on the
ground every trade possibility of the farther
shore of the Pacific. They lived among the
people, they learned the market, they obtained
t.uK>iiKiH, lyWi L»> ii. C V* ...it ^v..
CHINESE, TO WHOM WE MIGHT SELL CLOTHES
There arc more than 400,000,000 people in China proper. Minis-
ter Wu once estimated that if his people wore clothes as we do, and
every Chinaman should add an inch to his shirt-tail, the increase would
consume the cotton crop of the South for one year
manifests of every ship leaving for foreign ports,
they inquired into economic conditions, they
mixed with merchants, they laid the foundation
for an intelligent, practical creation of com-
merce between the Orient and the United States.
CHINA AS AN INDUSTRIAL COMPETITOR
The Han-yang Iron Works across the Yang-tse-Kiang from Hankow, China. The ore comes from Ta-yeh, sixty
miles distant, where a German expert estimates there are 100,000,000 tons available. The coal supply of all North
China is estimated at 605,000,000 tons. The Han-yang works turn out about 300 steel rails a day
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THE OLD WAY IN MANCHURIA
Chinese carts similar to the Red River carts used in St. Paul in the 'fifties
To build up any large trade with India was
found impracticable. The land tax kept the
people too poor to buy. The Government
could not remit the land tax without destroy-
ing its own means of support. And the Eng-
lish grip on the market had accustomed the
people to buy from their masters. But
reports covering international trade conditions
in Japan, China, and the whole coast district
of Eastern Asia confirmed the belief that here
was a market of immense value and that it
might be made ours.
The first steps had to be taken and the whole
burden assumed by the railroads. The birth
and the growth of our commerce with the
Orient would depend absolutely upon a fav-
orable transportation rate. Having to meet
the competition of the world, we must sell more
THE NEW WAY IN MANCHURIA
The Mukden- Antung Railway. The locomotive is American and the first car has American trucks and couplers
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THE INDUSTRIAL AWAKENING IN CHINA
A floating dry-dock at Tsing-tau, where the Germans have begun developments
cheaply and deliver more satisfactorily than
the rest of the world. For this, such rates
must be named as were unknown in transpor-
tation experience up to that time. This was
done. The plan by which three great rail-
road systems, reaching directly the markets in
this country most interested in both the
imports and the exports of the Orient,
should work together for the public benefit
was maturing.
The lumber business of the Pacific Coast
made possible the naming of a rate that should
open to us the closed doors of the trans-Pacific
East. The details then worked out have not
lost their interest as part of our economic
history, although the splendid possibility they
revealed has gone.
At the beginning the key to the situation was
the lumber rate. There were 400,000,000,000
feet of standing timber on the Pacific Coast.
It could not pay the ninety-cent freight rate to
the East at that time, when lumber prices were
but a fraction of what they are now. The
railroads could not afford to haul empty cars
west to carry that lumber east. It costs,
roughly, $160 to haul a car 2,000 miles across
the continent. But they could afford to carry
lumber temporarily at a low rate rather than
bring cars back empty. And if in this way
the lumber business could be developed, it, in
CHINA AS A MANUFACTURING COMPETITOR
A silk-winding establishment. There are about 45 of these in China (including the foreign concessions) and about
20 cotton mills, besides flour and rice mills, which are being built in the large centres
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12495
FREIGHT STEAMERS IN THE HARBOR OF YOKOHAMA
The greatest port in Japan. Next after it comes Kobe, Shimonoseki, and Moji
turn, would make possible later a low west-
bound rate, on which trade with the Orient
could be built up.
The lumbermen of the Pacific Northwest
said that while the ninety-cent rate shut them
out of the Eastern market, they could pay
sixty-five cents and do business there. Mar-
ket conditions at that time seemed, however,
to require a rate of not to exceed fifty cents.
The railroads offered a forty-cent rate on fir
and fifty cents on cedar, and those rates went
into effect. In 1900 the state of Washington
produced 1,428,205,000 feet of lumber; only
six years later its -product was 4,395,053,000
feet, with a total value of $62,162,840. In
the year 1906 Washington produced 61.5 per
cent, of all the shingles produced in the United
States. And the average mill value of Douglas
fir, the principal lumber product of the Puget
Sound forests, rose from $8.67 per thousand
feet in 1899 to $14.20 in 1906.
Before the state of Washington had direct
Copyright by H. C. White Co.
TRADE AT HAKODATE
One of the smaller Japanese ports, on Hokkaido, the most northerly
island and the least populous part of the Empire. It has a popu-
lation of about 60,000
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
IN THE HARBOR OF NAGASAKI
On the island of Sa Kiado. It is one of the great ports that
Japan has developed. Its shipping amounted to 2,712,052 tons
in 1007
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rail connections with the East, one could not
give cedar logs away. They used to let them
run out into the sea to get rid of them. Be-
cause low rates gave value to them, the price
has gone up to the present figure. These
rates added literally billions of dollars to the
North Pacific states. Resources were devel-
oped, the people of the interior eastward had a
more abundant supply of better lumber at
lower prices than ever before, and there was
an unprecedented growth of population and
prosperity upon the Pacific.
The next and expected result was that the
demand for this lumber grew until more cars
wedge for the trade of the Orient was driven
home. A low rate on cotton took it from the
lower Mississippi valley, Alabama and Texas,
and carried it 3,000 miles to Seattle for ship-
ment. In one year the number of bales of
cotton piece-goods carried to Puget Sound
increased from 13,070 to 64,542, and the num-
ber of pounds of raw cotton from 13,230,000
to 41,230,000. More and more manufactured
articles and other freight took the overland
route from the East to the Orient. More and
more inroads were made upon the trade of
competing countries. More and more staples
from all parts of the United States began to
OPENING MANCHURIA TO TRADE — THE DOCKS AT DALNY
of it were coming east than there were cars
loaded with freight going west. To equal-
ize the traffic movement again, more west-
bound tonnage was needed. It was found.
Three cars of cotton were sent to Japan as an
experiment, the railroads agreeing to take
all the risks and bear all the expenses. A dele-
gation from Japan passed through this coun-
try on its way to conclude a purchase of steel
rails in Europe. The railroads guaranteed
that the order would be duplicated at the price
in this country. It could be done only by
making a freight rate that would get the busi-
ness; but it was done, and another entering
move westward. In nails, wire, machinery
and other articles of that sort, a good business
was built up in Japan and China.
Of course it all had to be done just as all
other markets have been created or conquered
since commerce began; that is, by making
prices and rates that would beat all competi-
tors. The mills of Minneapolis and those
of Seattle and Spokane began to ship flour to
Australia and to China and Japan. To make
rates low enough for this, and to keep them
low, steamships able to carry more cheaply than
any steamships had ever done were needed.
In 1896 the Japanese Steamship Companv
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put on regular steamers to connect with the
Puget Sound terminals. But if the Oriental
trade was to expand as it clearly might and
should, this arrangement would not answer.
The mechanism of transportation must be as
complete on sea as it already was on land.
Somebody had to build ships that would carry
at bottom figures. Most of the ships then on
the Pacific were from 2,500 to 7,000 tons. To
keep rates low the Minnesota and the Dakota,
the greatest carriers in the world, were built.
These were ships of 28,000 tons, constructed
as the advance guard of a fleet that should
handle commerce as it developed. Ameri-
can trade with the Orient should be wholly
under American control. No accident and no
foreign power should be able to interfere with
the low rate and the adequate service on which
its fate must always depend.
AT CANTON — A LIGHTER OF THE PACIFIC MAIL S. S. LINE
from San Francisco, which "carries air" half the time owing to the
competition of the subsidized Japanese lines
The business increased. The market was
opened, the opportunity accepted, our trade
with the Orient, no longer a dream, became a
splendid fact, as the statistics show. In the
ten years between 1893 when the Great
Northern reached the coast, and 1903, the
exports of the Puget Sound customs district
increased from $5,085,958 to $32,410,367, or
nearly 540 per cent. In those years our
exports to Europe increased 50 per cent., to
North America 80 per cent., to South America
a little over 30 per cent., and to all Asia over
170 per cent. To Japan alone the increase
was from $3,000,000 to $21,000,000, or 600
per cent.; to China, from $4,000,000 to
$19,000,000; to Hongkong, from $4,000,000 to
$8,000,000; and to the three, from $11,000,000
to $48,000,000, or over 300 per cent. At this
rate it seemed that the bulk of the trade of the
Orient was ours for the taking.
Copyright. 1907. by II. C. White Co.
LANDING AMERICAN OIL AT CHIFU
In the year ending June, 1909, the Chinese bought from the United
States $8,499,270 worth of oil — next to cotton cloth their largest
American import
The advantages of such a market are greater
than appear upon the surface. Our people are
so disproportionately interested in the prog-
ress of manufacturing industry that, when new-
markets are mentioned, they think at once as
a rule of places where our manufactures may
be sold. But as about three-fourths of our
trade with the rest of the world consists of agri-
cultural products and raw materials, additional
customers for these are most to be desired.
For every new draft upon our surplus of them
i4uLilL5(Lii
J
"^ ■
Id^'^^B ^^^^ l^k. m
^ph^I Ik"
^^
I
Copyright by II. C White C.
SHANGHAI, AT THE MOUTH OF THE YANG- TSE-KlANt;
the Mississippi of China, navigable for steamers for r.000 miles. It is the
main artery of trade between the interior of the Empire and the coast
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12498
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
enhances the price, and thus increases the
reward of those engaged in adding to the real
wealth of the country.
Now a new market including from five hun-
dred millions of people upward was worth
considering. We could not export a large
range of commodities to the Orient. A people
whose labor is so cheap cannot afford many
luxuries. Labor is so expensive in the United
States that the Germans and the Belgians
Most direct and perceptible was the benefit
from opening such a market to the cultivators
of the soil in this country; to the men who raise
wheat and cotton and suv*h other agricultural
products as the Orient <n ~ht absorb. Every
additional bushel of whqfet sold abroad tends to
raise the price of the wljole crop. The law of
supply and demand is universal. The price
of wheat is governed by it, and fluctuates ac-
cording to the rise or fall of the visible supply,
THE HARBOR OF HONGKONG
This British colony in China does almost five times as much business with China as the United States; England does
about twice as much, and India almost as much, in spite of the fact that the principal imports into China are particularly
American products, such as cotton cloth, oil, and various manufactured articles
undersell our manufactured goods. But
because this country can produce cotton, grain,
iron ore, and coal cheaper than others, there are
some things that, with low freight rates, we
could lay down in Japan and China for less
money than any other country can. If the
Chinese should spend only one cent per day
per capita, it would amount to $4,000,000 a day,
or nearly $1,500,000,000 a year. We could
not spare food enough to sell them that much.
which is the world's surplus. Cut that down
and the price goes up.
Every bushel of wheat, every bale of cotton
sold in the East is taken out of the market; is
no longer here to compete in our shipments to
Liverpool and Antwerp and other European
ports. The farmers in New York and Ohio,
in North Dakota and Washington must all be
benefited; because the surplus is reduced by
just so much, and the market price of the
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12499
remainder is affected exactly as if that
much less had been produced originally.
A good authority computed the enhanced
price of American wheat on account of
actual shipments made to the Orient at
from five to seven cents a bushel in
this country. On a yield of 650,000,000
bushels this would be a clear gain of at
least $32,500,000 in the national wealth;
a gain bestowed where it would do most
good — in the pockets of the farmers of
the country. And the same is true of cotton
and of other commodities furnished by us to
the Orient.
Such was the opportunity created by the
labors of years; such the value to the
people of this country of constructive work
in the field of Oriental trade. As we
have followed the flow of that tide, we
are now to watch its ebb. Destruction
followed swiftly upon construction. Be-
fore considering the causes of the change,
it will be well to examine the following
table of commercial movements. The two
sides of the wave, its advance and retreat,
may be traced there mathematically. The
figures are from the official publications of the
United States:
EXPORTS FROM THE
UNITED STATES TO
IMPORTS INTO THE
UNITED STATES FROM
JAPAN
I89O $5,232,643 l890. . ... . .$21,103,324
1896 7,689,685 1896 25,537,038
i9<>5 51,719,683 1905 51,821,629
1907 38,770,027 1907 68,910,594
1908 41,432,327 i9°8 68,107,545
CHINESE EMPIRE
1890 $2,946,209 1890 Sl6,26o,47I
1896 6,921,933 1896 22,023,004
I905 53,453,385 I9°5 27,884,578
1907 25,704,532 I907 33,436,542
1908 22,343,671 1908 26,020,922
ALL ASIA
1890 $19,696,820 1890 $67,506,833
1896 25,630,029 1896 89,592,318
i9°5 128,504,610 1905 161,982,991
1907 92,703,664 1907 212,475,427
I908 101,784,846 I908 181,167,616
ALL EUROPE
1890 $683,735,795 1890 $449,987,266
1896 673,043,753 1896 418,639,121
1905 1,020,972,641 1905 540,773,092
1907 1,298,452,389 1907 747,291,253
1908 1,283,600,155 1908 608,014,147
II
AFTER this development was well under
way, the future depended almost
entirely upon the attitude of the
Government and the people. The railroads
and the ships, the customers and the freight,
were ready. This country had to give to the
Japanese and the Chinese wheat flour so cheap
that they would use it instead of rice. It had
to compete with the combined enterprise of
all the other countries of the world, where
production is often much cheaper than it is
in the United States. Profits had to be cut
to the bone.
The thing could be done; but only if those
who were doing it were not hampered in deal-
ing with that distant trade, so different in all
its conditions from domestic commerce. From
the beginning there were obstacles at home
to be overcome, and these grew steadily in
number and in difficulty. Results may be found
in the preceding table. Our exports to Asia
in 1890 were less than 3 per cent, of those to
Europe. By 1905 they had risen to over 12
per cent. In the next three years they dropped
to less than 8 per cent. It is a sharply defined
trade movement.
THE RESTRAINT BY THE GOVERNMENT
A direct restraint was the limitation by law
of the rate-making power as applied to foreign
trade. Over commerce on the high seas
neither Congress nor the Interstate Commerce
Commission has any direct authority. But
their indirect control can be made complete
and decisive. A through rate is made, say,
from Chicago to Yokohama. That through
rate is the affair of nobody but the trans-
portation system that gives it and the mer-
chant who gets it. Formerly the rate made was
such as would get. the business; because this
was new trade, which it was desired to secure
for the producers of the United States; and
often to avoid hauling empty cars. If
exceptionally low rates had to be given on a
line of business or a heavy consignment, to
take it away from the British or German or
Belgian competitor, they were given.
It was possible to make them because heavy
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INDIAN OCEAN
HOW THE UNITED STATES MIGHT HAVE CARRIED THE WORLD'S ORIENTAL TRADE
The route across this country would have given us control of the trade which Europe has fought over since Marco Polo.
It had hopes of success against the Suez route until the rate regulation interfered with it
shipments to the Orient usually meant cars
loaded to their capacity and an uninterrupted
long haul. These conditions are favorable to
a low cost of transportation. Then the rail-
road companies and the steamship company
adjusted the matter between them. Each
bore its proportion of the sacrifice. Each
helped the other to get the business; and all
of them helped the country by creating it and
keeping it for the country. Whatever may be
true of local traffic or against domestic competi-
tors, this method is indispensable against the
outside world if we are to compete for foreign
trade. For our trade rivals abroad are
unhampered.
But the making of low rates to secure foreign
business was stopped. It was decided that the
portion of a through rate which applies to
transportation within this country — that is,
the portion covering the distance from the
point of origin of foreign-bound freight to its
THE GREAT NORTHERN'S COTTON ROUTE TO ASIA
A special rate was made to get this traffic to fill the can that came
East loaded with lumber
port of shipment — is subject to regulation just
the same as commerce wholly within the
United States. The railroad and the steam-
ship could no longer act as partners. For the
rate to the seaboard must be published, so
that everybody could know it. It could not
be raised, under the old law, without ten days'
notice, or lowered without three. Under the
Hepburn Act it can neither be raised nor
lowered without thirty days' notice, except by
special order of the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission for each case. This is equivalent to
a prohibition of any change that will help
to get business.
SECONDARY CAUSES OF TRADE DECLINE
There are secondary causes contributing
materially to impede or impair the growth of
our trade with the Orient. The advance in
the price of wheat of late years has checked
exports. The New York Produce Exchange
reports the average price of No. 2 red winter
wheat in that market for 1894 as 61.1 cents,
and as 96.3 cents in 1907. It has been well
above a dollar during 1909, and sold as high
as $1.50 in New York after all speculative
support of the market had ceased. Where it
could once be bought for 50 cents a bushel
in the interior of the state of Washington, it
now brings a dollar. An advance of 50 per
cent., 100 per cent., perhaps 150 per cent., in
domestic prices cuts sharply into the export
trade. It is especially effective in those markets
where, as in China and Japan, earning power
and purchasing power are limited by a low wage-
scale and a correspondingly forced low cost of
subsistence, to which the price of the neces-
saries of life must conform. Such a change
as has occurred in prices makes wheat flour a
luxury in many parts of the Orient.
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The American ship-owner is discouraged
because he cannot earn a reasonable profit.
The American merchant marine alone among
the commercial nations of the earth is unsub-
sidized, yet competes with foreign vessels
government-paid under one disguise or another.
So far, for some reason, it has been found
impossible to give proper Federal encourage-
ment to cargo-carriers — which the people
approve and would like to see done — without
opening the treasury wide to the demands of
concerns operating swift passenger steamers
and contributing little or nothing to the growth
of foreign trade. This the people properly
refuse to sanction. So the actual carriers of
our products to the Orient and elsewhere fare
like Mother Hubbard's dog.
THE MANY GOVERNMENTAL REQUIREMENTS
Then the American who has put his money
into vessels to be sailed under the flag of his
country and wishes to help his enterprise by
earning the small compensation provided for
carrying the United States mails can qualify
for this only by having his ships built by the
high-priced labor and out of the high-priced
materials of this country; officered by American
citizens; and on each departure from the home
port for the first two years he must prove that
one-fourth of his crew are American citizens,
for the next three years it must be one-third,
and thereafter at least one-half. His competi-
tors may man their vessels with cheap Mon-
golian labor. He must make lower rates than
they and pay higher wages.
The sharpness of such competition is felt
especially in the Asiatic trade. As it affects
transportation, so it reacts upon the American
merchant and the American producer. Not
without comprehending the situation has a
recent critic of our policies said: "We may
build the inter-ocean .passage, but unless we
turn our eyes to the West and reach out for
what waits the trade-seeker there, it will only
aid in keeping the supremacy of the Pacific in
the hands of the foreigners, and we will main-
tain it for the benefit of other nations."
These impediments to American enterprise
are reinforced by circumstances unfortunately
such as to anger and alienate the very people
with whom we must enlarge our trade if we
do business with the Orient at all. The
Chinese and Japanese are proud, ancient, and
honorable races. They have played great
parts in history. In many respects they are
our equals. Chinese residents in the United
States have suffered personal indignities, and
sometimes loss of life, until the matter became
a national scandal.
Without regard to the policy of restricting
immigration, it may be said that the enforce-
ment of existing laws on the subject and the
suggestion of others have been attended by in-
cidents highly offensive to the two nations com-
manding practically the entire Oriental trade
in which this country can hope to have a con-
siderable share. Resentment has extended in
one instance to a practical national boycott for
a time upon American goods. Everywhere
it has produced antagonism to our people and
unwillingness to enlarge any sort of relation to
them; a condition so unfavorable to the growth
of commerce that it can be overcome only after
a lapse of time without repetition of the
offense.
All of these causes combined to produce the
results shown in the table of trade statistics
v/hich is printed on page 12499 of this article
and exhibiting trade decline. An even stronger
impression of the same fact is gained from a
study of the reports of foreign commerce by
customs districts, contained in the tables of
the Federal bureau of statistics. Our trade
with the Orient was formerly done largely
through the ports of Seattle, Tacoma, Portland,
and San Francisco. These cover the two trade
routes across the Pacific from our Western
coast. The first two are included in the cus-
toms district of Puget Sound. In 1890 the
Oriental trade through that district was a
negligible quantity. Our exports from it that
year were but $3,326,145. In 1908, with
transcontinental service perfected and rail and
ocean facilities increased, they had risen to
$44,032,767, an increase of 1,223 per cent.
The big jump was from $5,805,193 in 1895
to $33,788,821 in 1902, before the Russo-
Japanese War and hence free from its stimu-
lating influence.
This marks a period in which Puget Sound
itself changed from a wilderness to a great
commercial centre. Coming down later, the
total exports from that district in 1908 are
found to be less than they were in 1906, and
substantially the same as in 1905. There has
been no growth in these three years. Since
our carriers have been handicapped, much of
the trade with the Orient has gone to the
steamships of other countries, using the
Suez route.
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The moral of these figures is reinforced by
the record in the same time of the import busi-
ness, measuring our purchases from the Orient.
The imports into the Puget Sound customs
district in 1890 were only $305,289, while in
1908 they had grown to $22,208,814, an increase
of 7,174 per cent. The increase in imports
in these eighteen years is nearly six times as
great as the increase in exports. At San
Francisco, where there has been no such sudden
local development and no advantage of a short
ocean route, the figures are in another way even
more significant. Our total exports from that
port in 1890 were nearly $37,000,000, and in
1908 only $28,000,000; a falling off of about
25 per cent. Our total imports through San
Francisco were just half a million dollars less,
in a total of over $48,000,000, in 1908 than they
were in 1890. After eighteen years we are only
marking time.
JAPAN PROFITING BY OUR MISTAKE
This check or setback occurred at a time
when enlargement would have been greatest
had trade been permitted to flow freely. These
are the years when the Orient has called most
liberally upon the outside world. The awaken-
ing so long foretold is here. Japan, since her
successful war with Russia, has taken her
place among the great nations of the world.
She has organized her industry with the same
scientific attention to details that she gave to
her military operations. She has her own ship-
yards, in which her ocean carriers are built.
She has her own factories, in which almost
every manufactured commodity obtained here-
tofore from Europe or the United States is
ma,(de by her own artisans, working for wages
that would not be accepted here. She is pre-
paring and hoping to dominate the Oriental
markets and to invade those of the rest of the
world.
THE CHINESE AWAKENING
Following her example, the Chinese empire
has rubbed her sleepy eyes, and a similar
transformation is going on there. The great
productive fields of Manchuria are like our
own in many respects. A German expert
says that the iron ore deposits of the Tayeh
district, sixty miles from Hankow, average from
58 to 68 per cent, and contain more than
100,000,000 tons of available ore. Twenty
miles away there is good coking coal. He
thinks that the total ore supply of China is
not much less than that of the United States.
The coal supply of North China is estimated
at 605,000,000,000 tons.
All these resources are in the possession of a
people who believe that they should be enjoyed
according to the law of conservation rather than
under the rule of waste. All are to be devel-
oped under initiative not only caught from
Japan but learned in these years of humiliation
and disaster from the nations that have scorned
China and done with her as they pleased.
The Chinese are one of the strongest races
in the world; intelligent, industrious, frugal,
and brave. They have several thousand years
of history behind them. Both China and
Japan have inventive as well as imitative
ability. Gunpowder and the mariner's com-
pass were ancient in China when the white
race thought it had discovered them. Such
men, endowed with such resources as are still
untouched in the Orient, working under a
wage scale with which the Western world can-
not possibly compete, not only do not promise
to furnish us with a profitable future market
for manufactures, but they will eventually
become competitors such as we have never
had to meet.
THE ORIENT AS AN INDUSTRIAL COMPETITOR
The markets of Europe, our own markets,
may, not long hence, be full of goods made in
the Orient, for sale at prices so low that no
tariff endurable by our own people would keep
them out. Then we wMl begin to study the
Oriental trade problem from the other end;
perhaps with a humbler and more disciplined
mind.
For the present we can sell some flour in
China and Japan, until the Manchurian up-
lands shall be turned into wheat fields. Then
China can grow wheat at a cost of seventy cents
a bushel in silver, which is about equal to
thirty cents in gold in this country. They can
do as well in other industries, as soon as their
resources are developed; and upon this every
effort is being concentrated.
We sell them considerable raw cotton, which
is taken and mixed with the Indian fibre to
make a smoother and better fabric than they
get from outside. At the present rate of growth
in cotton manufacturing in the Orient, and with
wages in China at from ten to twenty cents a
day, the Far East will presently clothe itself
and begin to think of entering the high-priced
markets of the West in its turn. We have only
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12503
wheat, flour, lumber, raw cotton, some cotton
goods, and certain lines of iron manufactures
and machinery to sell across the Pacific.
The trade in these, owing to the facts set
forth in this article, has not been extended or
made permanent. It was experimental. It
is still hand-to-mouth and of uncertain future.
There was much activity during and after the
war with Russia, but it has slackened. Our
export of flour to all the countries of Asia in
1908 was less than in 1904, and very little
greater than in 1903. It has grown 27 per
cent, in seven years. The eyes of the Orient
are fixed not on the United States but on the
whole world. They are the eyes of men who
have suffered, have learned, have become
conscious of their own powers and propose to
make the future recompense them for the past.
Of one other factor in the situation, perhaps
as dangerous as any, our country remains
strangely unconscious. Probably only the
few persons actually engaged in attempts to
compete with Oriental industry understand the
effect of the difference in the exchanges between
two countries having different monetary stand-
ards-in value or in use or in both. It makes
the Orient a sharp competitor.
A LITTLE-KNOWN CHINESE MENACE
As soon as capital is supplied to develop
her native resources, she will furnish her own
raw materials for manufacture, buying them
in her own markets on the silver basis and
selling them abroad on the gold basis. This
will enable her, as long as her own people are
content to accept these low silver prices for
material and labor, to cut our prices in two.
Bar silver sells at about fifty-two cents per
ounce in New York. On this basis the silver
in a dollar is worth aboi^t forty-five cents.
The Chinese manufacturer who can pay his
workmen their low wage with silver worth its
face, and sell his product for gold that is con-
vertible into silver at twice its face, has an
advantage which we cannot ignore or escape.
Twenty years ago Japan felt for us something
of the fine loyalty, the reverence that admires
without analyzing which the bright boy feels
toward an elder brother. At an even later
date China regarded us as the least uncivilized
of the nations that looted her ancient capital
and despoiled her immemorial temples for the
decoration of modern drawing-rooms. In
both we might have laid the foundations of
a future commercial connection so deep and
sure that they could not be disturbed. To-day
the favoring moment has passed. To-day the
instruments by which that trade must be done
are either broken or impaired, while much
of the trade itself has gone elsewhere, and more
is being destroyed by the rise of native indus-
tries to which both offended race-feeling and the
economic incentive give impetus.
To-day the United States is in the Orient
where it is in all the other markets of the earth :
face to face with a world-wide competition,
with an interest growing but slowly or actually
declining, with a high cost of production and
with the prospect that its customers are only
waiting the time, near at hand, when they can
become its competitors. The situation is
more momentous for this than for any other
country, because control of the Pacific touches
our future and unites our fortunes with those
of the other nations that live upon its shores.
WHAT WE CAN AND SHOULD DO NOW
The outlook is not hopeless, but it is not
encouraging. The country needs to rid itself
of the illusion that its Oriental trade is to be
one of the big elements in its future prosperity —
a conception still lingering grotesquely in many
minds, along with the idea that we are powerful
competitors of other nations in the world's mar-
kets for manufactured goods — and settle down
to saving such of it as can be saved. There are
still possibilities if all the transportation forces,
all the people, the Federal Government, and
the laws should unite to protect, to encourage
this traffic, and to liberate it from the bondage
against which it has almost ceased to struggle.
The constructive and the destructive epochs
in the life of this portion of our foreign com-
merce are as interesting and as instructive
as many volumes of political history or political
economy. If there should come a keener
vision to our people and their leaders, out of
mistake and failure there might yet, perhaps,
be wrought something of moment to the future
of our nation and its destiny on land and sea.
[Mr. HilFs next article deals with one of the fundamental problems which vex the public
mlwl — funu to control the great combinations of capital. Mr. HiU shows the futility of trying to
maintain an artificial competition where the economics of the situation favors combination; he dis-
cusses the cost of competition and explains the benefits and evils of consolidation.]
MY BUSINESS LIFE
ii
A FACTORY WITHOUT STRIFE — A TOWN WITHOUT CRIME -A BUSINESS
THAT PAYS DIVIDENDS TO STOCKHOLDERS. WORKERS, AND CUSTOMERS
BY
N. O. NELSON
FOLLOWING the restoration of pros-
perity in 1879, prices and the cost of
living rose faster than wages. Labor
was in demand, unions started up, and strikes
were frequent and violent. By 1886 the
Knights of Labor were full of the enthusiasm
of conquest; they were fighting for supremacy;
united labor was to rule the world. Terrence
Powderly was the Plumed Knight; Martin
Irons was his lieutenant in the railroad world.
Since the wild-fire strike of 1877, when riot
and destruction swept from the AUeghanies to
the Mississippi, the Knights had pushed their
membership up into the millions, and believed
themselves invincible.
When four men were discharged from the
railroad shops of the Gould system, a gen-
eral strike was summarily ordered.' Traffic
stopped; more than half the railroads serving
the trade territory of St. Louis stood idle.
Martin Irons was in the saddle; in pictur-
esque orders, he announced that no locomotive
would leave its stable until the four men
were reinstated and none but Knights employed
on the Gould road.
A little old man, crippled and sick, directed
the Gould roads from a room in the Equitable
Building in St. Louis. He was Napoleonic
in looks and temper. Iron's pronunciamen-
toes were met by H. M. Hoxie's orders that
the roads would run and the men would work
as he directed, or not at all. He was respon-
sible to the owners and to the public, and
divided authority had no standing in his office.
When the strike was beginning to weaken,
a delegation called on Mr. Hoxie and he let
them stand. There was no diplomatic invi-
tation to seats. As the strike dragged on
and trade was falling off and factories were
closing and the public was loudly impatient, a
committee of three respectables, of which I was
one, was appointed by a citizens' meeting. We
reported our credentials and business to Mr.
Hoxie, with a request for an appointment. The'
answer came that he could not confer on the
subject
Here was food for reflection — capital and
labor at war, the public hungry and helpless,
an irresistible body ramming an immovable
body, the business world approving Mr. Hoxie's
defense against anarchy, the wage-labor world
backing Mr. Irons and Mr. Powderly as the
heroic knights defending men against the
tyranny of capital. How much sheer bun-
combe and class pride there was in both of
these claims I did not then know so well as I
do now, after twenty-three years of additional
history.
But the conclusion was unavoidable that
there was in the employment system an irre-
sistible conflict between the position of Hoxie
on the one hand and Irons pn the other. I
knew that corporation capital and authorita-
tive management to direct it were necessary.
I believed that the mass of wage-earners
would not get living wages without organiza-
tion and committees to negotiate, and without
strikes as the final argument.
We had the capitalist system, and I knew
that it would stay — not forever, but for all
of my time. Labor organizations, demands,
and strikes had always been and were going
to be. The conflict of interest was inherent
in the hiring system; clashes were inevitable.
About this time, in Sedley Taylor's book on
profit-sharing, I came across an account of
two Frenchmen owning successful businesses;
they had taken their employees into partner-
ship, first in the profits and then in the owner-
ship and control. The first of these was
Edmond Leclaire, a house-painter in Paris,
who had introduced profit-sharing in 1840.
He retired in 1870, and the business has ever
since been owned by the workmen. In 1904,
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12505
the pay-roll numbered 1,500 men. M. Godin,
an iron founder of Guise, France, had adopted
the plan about 1870, and at the time I
am writing of it was working successfully.
It has immensely increased since. These
concerns were half a century old; they had
survived revolutions and business upheavals;
they were large and prosperous. Profit-sharing
had apparently made them more prosperous;
they had tested and proved the theory. It
seemed to me a rational method of creating
a mutual interest, retaining expert manage-
ment, approximating justice, and preserving
peace. Yet I did not conceive it to be an
easily applied panacea, for I had seen a wave of
cooperation as a protest against capitalism
sweep over the country like a cyclone, leaving
only wreckage behind. Evidently, good man-
agement was as necessary in cooperation as
under capitalism.
PROFIT-SHARING WITH EMPLOYEES
However, I decided to adopt it. In March,
1886, I put into the pay envelopes of the 200
employees a printed slip, reading as follows:
"Beginning with January 1st, this year, we
propose to divide the profits made in our business
upon the following basis:
"After allowing 7 per cent, interest on actual
capital invested, the remainder will be divided
equally upon the total amount of wages paid and
capital employed. Each employee will get his
proportion according to the amount of wages paid
him for the year.
"This will apply to persons who have served the
company six months or over within the year, and
who have not been discharged for good cause."
A month later, I called the employees together
and restated the plan. It was so simple that
little explanation was necessary.
There were no pyrotechnics, no excitement,
no suspicion. I neither knew nor cared how
much weight the men attached to it. I made
no estimate of increased profits from more or
better work. The newspapers took notice and
the writers formulated results — mostly good
ones. My business friends prophesied indif-
ference and interference.
We had none of the sensational incidents
which we read about in other cases. It is
'told of Leclaire that when he announced his
plan, the men freely expressed their incredulity,
but when at the end of the year he dramatically
threw a bag of $4,300 in coin on the table as
the men's share, they stood amazed and con-
verted. M. Leclaire, being sensible enough
to be a successful contractor, presumably did
nothing so silly, nor were the workmen so
childish as to think that their employer was
trifling with them when he had nothing to gain
and his reputation to lose.
Some orthodox business men said that it was
foolish to give away money. Some labor
theorists said that if the men earned it, raise
their wages; if they did not earn it, it was
charity and was not wanted. But this was
talk; it gave me no concern. The social
theorists said all men would want to work for
us, that none would quit. They also were
mistaken; they were talking about straw-men.
I was discreetly non-committal in my expecta-
tion, and, therefore, not disappointed.
Affairs went on as before, perhaps better.
What difference or improvement resulted I
never tried to make out. No one can tell in
practice how much of the dividend is made
good by better work/ You cannot measure
a slight change by looking at the bookkeeper
or salesman or machinist at work, nor can he
suddenly change his speed or attention. You
cannot tell by the year's profits, because other
elements enter into them; you cannot tell by
men's words, because they don't talk; and if
called out by asking, politeness is a screen
in business as well as in society. You may
reason that self-interest will impel men to work
with more industry and care when the gain is
partly their own. But you are in danger of
over-estimating the promptness of this influ-
ence. The influence has to make itself felt
in minds schooled to opposition. By tradi-
tion and inoculation, sometimes by experience,
the employer is looked on as the enemy. Shall
his victims be cajoled into more work because
he parades as a friend? This attitude is
persistently fostered alike by Union and
Socialist leaders. When we remember the
disparity between the work and income of the
proprietor and that of the worker, the wide
gulf between them, the class attitude and sus-
picion should give us no wonder.
Up to the panic year, 1893, the dividends
on wages were from 8 to 10 per cent.; through
the following years of depression they were
five, four, and nothing. On the restoration of
good times, a dividend of 4 per cent, was paid
on all the suspended years. Contrary to the
fears of the critics and friends, no employee
had at any time criticised, interfered, or com-
plained of the size or cessation of dividend.
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MY BUSINESS LIFE
Beginning with 1889, the dividends were
paid only in stock. When an employee sev-
ered his connection, we cashed his stock —
until I found that men were quitting in order
to get the cash. I then stopped cashing it,
except in cases of need or permanent departure.
During the panic of 1893, money was scarce
and customers slow. We could continue run-
ning the factories full, if we could be liberal
in waiting for payment. I laid the case before
a meeting of the employees and suggested a
cut in wages of 25 per cent., which would be
refunded when future profits justified. The
meeting approved the proposal unanimously.
Four months later, the full rate was restored
and the reduction made good.
In 1894, the proportion allowed to wages
was doubled.
On December 1, 1904, the plan was further
changed to its present terms. The customers
profit. To this gross profit account is added
50 per cent., and on this amount, combined
with the wages fund, an equal dividend is
declared and paid in stock. Or, stated
another way, the customer receives one and
a half times the rate of dividend allowed
capital, and the employee double the rate
on his wages.
In the last four years, the dividends on
wages have been successively 15, 25, 30, and
20 per cent.; and on gross profits, 25, 40, 45,
and 30 per cent.
For convenience sake, we exclude customers
who have bought less than $100 during the
year; and governments, railroads, and whole-
sale houses which have bought at a reduc-
tion in prices equaling the dividend. The
following table shows the movement for three
complete years under the present plan, and
the year preceding:
A COMPARISON OF FOUR YEARS
Before the customers were taken into the
profit-sharing plan
After the customers were taken into
the profit-sharing plan
Sales
1904
$1,622,725
181,633
i35,39S
(50% for a pe-
riod of years.
(Not begun.)
737,967
1005
$2,007,341
188,317
156,854
15%
25%
919,688
1906
$2,353,98i
214,824
230,506
25%
45%
1,033,812
1907
$3, "6,387
219,914
357,519
30%
45%
1,418,003
Expenses, Interest and Losses
Net Profits
Dividend on Employees' Wages
Dividend on Customers' Gross Profit . . .
Factory Production and House Construction .
were taken into the scheme. Capital other
than mine was to have 6 per cent, interest,
but no further part in the profit. The
dividend to employees was based on the
wages earned within the year, counting all
who were employed at the close of the
year, regardless of length of service. We
have no season force; there are as many
at one time as another.
PROFIT-SHARING WITH CUSTOMERS
The dividend to customers is based on the
gross profit, the difference between first cost
and selling price. Some goods command a
much larger profit than others. Baling the
dividend on sales would, in a large proportion
of the goods, reduce them below cost. The
gross profit is figured on each item, footed
for each bill, and posted to the customer's
account. The customer's dividend is thereby
based on his contribution to the aggregate
Thus the sales and the manufacturing prac-
tically doubled in three years; the net profits
increased 160 per cent.; the expense rate fell
from above 11 per cent, to 7 per cent.; and
the rate of net profit rose from 8 per cent, to
n£ per cent.
In the twenty-three years no change has
come in my original confidence in the plan,
nor in my opinion of the irrepressible conflict
between private capital and hired labor. The.
conviction has grown upon me that the cap-
tain of industry having die direction of capital
is a public functionary charged with social as
well as financial responsibility; that he has
no exclusive right to a monopoly of his abil-
ity nor to the property that he creates. Allow-
ing for the process of education necessary to
bring men who are bred to fighting for wages
and conditions into an appreciation of profit
and ownership and self-employment, the
employees have responded as well as I expected.
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12507
Enthusiastic but inexperienced admirers have
assumed that the system would make every
employee satisfied and happy; that it would
eliminate strikes; that every one would volun-
tarily do his utmost to increase the profits,
and that it would relieve me of care and
anxiety. No such roseate results are to be
expected from any class when self-interest or
class interests are affected.
We have had strikes, but only in obedience
to national union rules or district union
demands, in which some portion of our force
were under obligation or influence to join.
On two occasions it was the union rule limit-
ing the number of apprentices to one for every
eight journeymen.
About the time that I started profit-sharing,
there was a renewed interest in labor ques-
tions and much writing on the subject. Pro-
fessor N. P. Gilman published an excellent
history of "Profit-sharing Between Employer
and Employed." General Francis A. Walker,
author of a good text-book on Political Econ-
omy, wrote much in support of profit-sharing
and cooperation. Reverend Edward Everett
Hale, for whose name and work any praise
is inadequate, wrote "Back to Back," and
"How They Lived at Hampton," showing
that a partnership between capital-manage-
ment and labor could benefit all. Bemis,
Ely, Wright, and other economic professors
wrote on the subject. The air was full of it.
The Granger rage for cooperative stores "to
beat the robber middle-man" had died out,
but profit-sharing became popular and I had
many imitators.
Professor Gilman called a meeting in New
York to form a profit-sharing association and
propaganda. Of those present I remember
Professor Gilman, Alfred Dolge, one of the
Cuttings, President Calloway of the "Clover
Leaf" railroad, and General Walker. There
was not enough material for an association,
and no other meeting was called.
From that time to this, many profit-sharing
experiments have been made, some lasting only
a trial year, some still continuing. Among the
oldest and largest is that of Proctor & Gamble,
of Ivorydale, near Cincinnati; and among the
recent ones, that of the Crane Company, of
Chicago, The United States Steel Company
has a plan of selling stock on easy terms to
employees; and while there is merit in the plan,
it is not profit-sharing. Genuine and prac-
tical profit-sharing must be a division with
labor, not capital; it must rest on wages and
not on investment. Employees will not deprive
themselves of spending money, much less tie
it up in permanent investments. They can
learn to work more loyally when they know
that it benefits them; they can become inter-
ested in owning stock which pays them a cash
dividend and which increases each year. As
provision for old age or disability, they can
come to understand the good-will and good
sense in a genuine partnership between capital
management and labor. This is profit-sharing,
and nothing less is.
PROFIT-SHARING SUCCESSFUL IN EUROPE
Several trips that I took abroad during this
period increased my knowledge of and belief
in cooperation. In 1886, I took my family
to Europe and visited Godin's extensive profit-
sharing iron works and Familistere at Guise,
France. This was an assuring object lesson.
Everything about the life of the 1,200 employees
was provided for — well-built and well-kept
living quarters, day nursery, kindergarten,
school, store, park, pension for old age and
sickness, and a growing ownership in the
works. The capital and control has long since
passed entirely into the hands of the employees,
of which there are now 1,800.
I went again in 1888, and formed the
acquaintance of a few of the English coopera-
tors and of Charles Robert, the head and front
of profit-sharing in France. From that time
I became fully alive to the codperative move-
ment, read its literature, and corresponded
with its exponents. They took a kindly inter-
est in my New World experiment, and gave
me every encouragement.
In 1895 there was called in London a meet-
ing of delegates from codperative and profit-
sharing associations the world over, with the
aim of forming an international alliance, and
I went. It proved entirely successful; there
was a full attendance; the permanent chair-
man was Earl Grey, now Governor-General
of Canada, then fresh from the Governor-
ship of South Africa. An alliance was
formed, which has since met biennially and
has done much to keep cooperation on the
right lines and spread it to the corners of the
earth. One of its results is that there are now
"wholesale societies" in eleven countries,
counting our own, and these have recently
formed an alliance for joint foreign buying
and interchange trade.
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MY BUSINESS LIFE
At that meeting I made the acquaintance of
several of the original cooperators, those who
took an active part in the earliest beginning,
and had been continuously in service. Most
prominent of these were George Jacob Holy-
oake and John Malcolm Ludlow. They
belonged to the Old-Guard Intellectuals, who
served the cause with life-long devotion.
Frederick Denison Maurice died early; Canon
Kingsley fell out of line; but Judge Thomas
Hughes (who wrote "Tom Brown at Rugby"),
E. Van Sittart Neale, Ludlow, and Holyoake
lived to see their favorite child grown to lusty
manhood. Ludlow alone remains, living
quiedy in Kensington, London. Being a bar-
rister, he attended to getting acts passed to suit
the new plan of business, and he became
Registrar of the Friendly Societies Bureau. I
hear from him occasionally. Holyoake was
preeminently the Grand Old Man of coopera-
tion. He died in 1906, in his eighty-ninth year,
venerated and mourned by the British nation
and by cooperators everywhere. Holyoake
was the historian of the movement. He and
I had corresponded long before the international
meeting, and he received me most cordially.
He was then seventy-eight, frail in body, but
vigorous and alert in mind. His voice had
always been peculiarly light, and was now
piping but penetrating. He was preeminently
the leading spirit in formulating the policy of
the meeting, ably supported by Earl Grey,
Edward Owen Greening, Greenwood, and
Secretary Gray. Holyoake sent me his new
books, warmly inscribed, and a large signed
portrait. Shortly before his death, he declared
that of all the reforms he had fostered, coopera-
tion was by far the most important.
FOUNDING A COOPERATIVE VILLAGE
After I had got well into profit-sharing and
had looked into the faces at our annual meet-
ings, it began to dawn on me that homes and
social facilities were more important than
dividends and stock. I had long known the
slums. I had carried tens of thousands of
withered babies and children and mothers on
the fresh-air boat excursions. I knew how
hopeless was the task of raising the living con-
ditions of the city majority. I knew how
unorganized the employees were for social inter-
course. I conducted lecture courses and
made a library and game room in our large
office, but it was an imposition and not a
favor to ask men to come a long way to an
indoor evening. It looked foolish to be so well
organized for working and entirely unorganized
for living. It looked sensible and practicable
to combine business and living with all the
modern conveniences. The idea was com-
pelling; the country with plenty of room and
air was a heritage; the city was an incubus.
To me it was clear, but I called the employees
together and asked if they wanted it. They
were unanimous for it, but it was like voting —
a cheap and thoughtless concurrence.
Then I looked around the suburbs of St.
Louis for land; I inspected many tracts in
Missouri and in Illinois. One suitable tract
ten miles from St. Louis I offered to buy, but
a stiff price was held out for, because the neigh-
bors were averse to a "factory town"; and I
do not blame them, as factory towns go. I
looked about New England at pleasing towns
and villages, Dr. Hale going with me on one
of these tours.
At last a tract of 125 acres of rich, high,
gendy rolling land, adjoining Edwardsville,
111., eighteen miles from St. Louis, was offered
by the people of Edwardsville, and I took it.
I named it Leclaire, in honor of the pioneer
French profit-sharer, and because the name
was short, sweet, and euphonious. It was
second choice — Holyoake, after the Grand
Old Man of codperation, being first, but there
was already more than one Holyoke in Illinois.
Hale would have come next, except that the
name differs from its distinguished owner in
being only four letters long, while he was six
feet four, or thereabouts.
In June, 1890, we took an excursion train
out to view the foundations for the factories
and club-house. The whole 125 acres was in
good wheat, because it is good land. We
insisted on the best land and natural facilities.
We got also the best of railroad facilities.
President Calloway, of the Clover Leaf Route,
gave me everything that I asked for. He
believed in the idea, and said lots of good
things about Leclaire afterward.
. Very soon after the village was started he
brought his directors to visit Leclaire. Among
them were Colonel Robert Ingersoll, Mr.
Armour, and Mr. Havemeyer. They all took
great interest in the "free and equal" litde
burgh, and it led to a close personal acquaint-
ance with Mr. Calloway and Colonel Ingersoll.
Even after he became president of the New
York Central, Mr. Calloway continued his
interest in Leclaire, and we met often.
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»5°9
The Clover Leaf railroad has passed through
two receivers' hands and has had different
owners, but they have all respected the ex-
tremely favorable agreement then made, and
they have all shown a hearty interest in
Leclaire and its plan. I have always found
railroad owners and managers fair and liberal,
if you give them a chance. I always find
better results from offering inducements than
from making demands. When General Mana-
ger Houlahan came along, with a wit as Irish
as his name, we found that we had both helped
construct the Burlington system — he as water-
boy and I with our farm team on the grading.
At Leclaire we started at one and the same
time the factory buildings, the club-house, the
bowling alley, the baseball grounds, and a
few houses to live in.
We made the factories within and without as
commodious, healthy, and attractive as we
knew how, for men and boys spend most of
their lives in and about them. What the
home is to the family the shop is to the bread-
winner. Its good condition and appearance
are educational, economical, and pleasurable.
A FACTORY WITHOUT LABOR CONFLICTS
The Leclaire factories have never shut down.
They are of brick, substantial, vine-clad, well
lighted, on the best models, and equipped with
automatic sprinklers and the highest standard
of fire protection. Insurance costs us eight cents
per hundred dollars, and we are free from any
danger of interruption of work by fire.
We have always favored shorter working
days, not, however, under the delusion that
eight hours will produce as much as ten, or
that shorter days will not raise the cost of liv-
ing, other things being equal. In 1886 an
effort was made by the brass-workers through-
out the country to cut the ten-hour day to eight.
To encourage the movement, and before any
demand was made, we adopted the eight-
hour day. At the end of four months it was
evident that the movement had failed, and
by the free concurrence of our force we went
back to ten. Later we again reduced the hours
to eight, but few other factories followed our
example.
In 1903 we adopted a nine-hour day in all
our factories — except in one which does
piece-work — and though a large portion of
competing manufacturers work ten, we shall
never lengthen, but rather shorten the day. As
the output and profit now affect only the profit-
sharers and not the capital, we shall in due time
leave it to the men to say whether they want
shorter days and greater speed or less income.
I encouraged our marble workers to organ-
ize a union and join the new National Union.
Marble workers in some places were under-
paid. I wanted them all up to our standard.
I gave the time to one of our men to go off
as an organizer. After a little, their union
rule of one apprentice to eight journeymen
was brought up; I said: "No, our boys must
learn a trade; the union is not fit authority
to decide who shall learn a trade or who may
work." They struck, and the shop stood idle.
We sat around on the grass and talked about
it and the weather. I told them that Leclaire
was made to give everybody a first-class chance
to work. The sons of the Leclairites must have
a full show. At the end of two weeks the men
went back to work, and there were no hard
feelings.
I once offered to turn over one of the depart-
ments to the men employed in it, to manage
for themselves and have all of the profits.
There happened to be a new man in the
engine-room. He was an ardent unionist;
he knew nothing about Leclaire or coopera-
tion or me. He got up an agitation against
the programme, incited a strike, and I imme-
diately called it off. I am for peace and for
freedom all the time.
When we moved the first factory to Leclaire,
many of the men dropped out, and others came
back after a short trial. There was the new-
ness of everything, the family ties and the city
attractions to call them back. It took time
to overcome these social habits and ties, but
they have been entirely outgrown.
GIVING THE WORKINGMAN A CHANCE
People are naturally good and tasteful if
they have a chance. Two things water-log
people — apartness and dependence. When
a man's nearest neighbor is ten miles away, or
half a mile away, he does not feel much pride
in his surroundings. If he rents a house or a
farm from somebody else, he feels like an alien.
No man will fight for his boarding-house or
improve his rented farm or house. It was an
uphill job to get the men to understand that
there was no boss in Leclaire. It dawned on
them by degrees that when they had paid a
week's or a month's instalment on their home,
it was theirs — their own casde. No king or
boss could touch them, or wanted to.
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We have had our little backsets, but they
are only fly-specks. The workmen didn't
want homes as much as I had guessed. They
were used to renting; they were afraid of a boss;
they wanted to spend ail of their money. A
half-dozen took hold at once; little by little
others came around; last year we were called
upon to build for twenty-eight. Few, if any,
home-takers ever had money to pay in advance
on their homes. They were apparently dead
broke. But no one has ever defaulted in his
payments, barring an occasional month or two
on account of sickness.
They have planted flowers, and they cut their
grass. Few of them had ever before planted
anything, or had a yard or owned a house.
But they wanted to have their place as neat
and pretty as their neighbors'; the social
spirit infected them. If this did not always
break out at once, we gave it time. It was
surer than vaccination. The women and
children did it mostly; they have made Leclaire
beautiful. Every visitor in these eighteen
years from all parts of the world has remarked
on how well everybody's place is kept. The
company keeps the public grounds; the people
keep their own. There has never been any
conflict, but full harmony between the two.
A HARMONIOUS, WORKING DEMOCRACY
The people got what they wanted; they have
paid for it without a murmur; the largest
families on laborers' wages have paid as
regularly and apparently have lived as well as
any. We do not select; we have all occupa-
tions — laborers, mechanics, clerks, and miners.
We have nearly all nationalities, some of them
recent immigrants. We have the illiterate and
the highly educated; the man with laborer's
day-wage and the highly paid mechanic and
salaried man; and we have every religion and
sect, and some with no religion. If a man
applies for a lot, we sell it to him, and let him
build for himself. If he is an employee, we
build for him upon agreed monthly or weekly
payments. We draw no lines; if in social fin-
ish or in morals he is thought to be below our
level, it is our opportunity to give him the
chance to learn. We do not, therefore, start
with superior material; we exercise no repres-
sion or guardianship; and yet we have no
crime, no disorderly conduct; but, on the
contrary, superior behavior.
Leclaire has grown to be a town of six hun-
dred without any town government The
Nelson Company, as the representative of
all, does the public work and charges it
to general expense — a single-tax on the
profits. Whenever the people prefer to have
a town organization, they can incorporate,
go into politics, and pay their own expenses.
I have never heard of a suggestion to
incorporate. The people are free, the com-
pany is theirs; it can attend to the public
affairs more economically and thoroughly than
any other body.
The cities and towns of this country average
forty arrests in a year per thousand inhabitants.
By this average, Leclaire should have had
about 240 arrests. It has had none. This
remarkable exemption means something very
important. I do not know of any other social
phenomenon of so great significance. It must
be accounted for, and it can be. It is not due
to exceptional people, by selection or occupa-
tion or nationality or education or income or
religion.
The explanation clearly lies in the common-
place factors which prevail in Leclaire, but
not in other towns: steady employment at
congenial work, a sufficient living income, a
home on the land, attractive surroundings,
social opportunities and attachments, relative
equality, no saloons, no restrictions or force,
partnership in the factory. Under these cir-
cumstances is there any reason to expect any
one to assault or rob or disturb the neighbors
he lives and works with, whose sons and
daughters are the friends and associates of his
own? The results seem to me to be the legiti-
mate offspring from the conditions.
COOPERATION GOOD FOR CITIES ALSO
It is no far stretch to believe that the same
conditions on a large scale would have the
same consequences. Multiply zero by a hun-
dred, and it is zero still. I am averse to big
things, big crowds, big cities. I would not
have Leclaire grow to ten times its present
size, unless it were to test and prove the theory.
I think that it would still need no rules, no
policemen, no prison.
Some of Leclaire's six or seven hundred
inhabitants are Edwardsville merchants, some
retired farmers, some railroad people and some
coal miners. Everybody is welcome on equal
terms. All of the Nelson Company employees
do not live in Leclaire. They do not have to.
Many of them were brought up in Edwards-
ville, adjoining. Some have preferred to locate
Digitized by V^OOQlC
MY BUSINESS LIFE
12511
outside of Leclaire. There is no rule about
who may or may not live in Leclaire.
There is a tradition that young people dislike
the country and long for the city life and lights.
It is not so in Leclaire. But two of our grown-
up boys have gone away, and these with social
regret. None of the girls have gone. Neither
young people nor old people will prefer the
cities when the conditions are right in the
country.
Along with the main principles of coopera-
tion we have tried many accessory schemes in
Leclaire. Some have worked; others have not.
We once had a school or college in which the
pupils were to get an education and at the
same time learn a trade. They worked half
of the day and studied half of the day. They
could continue this programme as long as they
wanted to — as long as they lived — a good plan
for a lifetime. The majority of the pupils
came from a distance. To the surprise of the
faculty and myself, we found that with prac-
tically no exception they came to get an edu-
cation in order to get rid of work. As this was
exactly what we wanted to prevent, and as
there are plenty of institutions for that pur-
pose, we gave it up.
I do not doubt that the practical educator
who knows just how could in time so interest
boys that they would want both learning and
a trade, and follow the trade. Oddly enough,
the several educators whom I attempted
to engage, while enamored of the plan, always
projected an academic course leading to intel-
lectual vocations. I am persuaded that indus-
trialism and agriculture should be introduced
into the elementary and high schools, and the
school years lengthened in order that all of
the youth shall become efficient in their future
vocation, individually and socially. The hand,
the head, and the heart must be educated
together.
Leclaire has a cooperative store owned by
members living in Leclaire and Edwardsville.
The shares are $25, which can be paid in cash
or by the dividends received on purchases.
A member holds only one share; he has a vote
whether he has paid in part or in full. He
receives 6 per cent, per annum on the amount
paid up, and he receives his share of the profit
in proportion to his trade. Non-members are
free to trade, and they receive half dividend.
The dividends on purchases are usually 6 or 8
per cent., and are paid quarterly. Some
amount is first taken out for reserve. Buy-
ing is all for cash, and the selling is for cash,
except that some deliveries are unpaid until
the next call. There is never exceeding one
week's sales outstanding. There are 130
stockholders, and sales of about $22,000 a year.
This store is on the standard Rochdale coopera-
tive plan in its entirety, a rare thing to find
among the hundreds in the United States.
Debts, credit, no dividend to non-members,
high interest, and low dividends are their
besetting sins.
LECLAIRE MAKES ITS OWN FUN
We believe in amusement and recreation, and
therefore made at the start baseball grounds,
a bowling alley, a club room; and the next
year a rowing, fishing, and skating lake. They
have all been "wanted." Whenever we intro-
duce anything into Leclaire that we find is
not wanted, we drop it.
Our baseball team has visiting nines from
the surrounding towns and St. Louis weekly
throughout the summers. They play to audi-
ences of about 1,000, sitting on our hall chairs
and on the blue-grass, or standing in lines
reaching from the home-plate to first and third
bases. They play a gentleman's game, for
the fun of playing, not for the greed of winning
by hook or crook.
In the older times we had lecture courses.
But by degrees the intellectuals of Edwards-
ville came more and our people came less.
The two classes will not mix, especially when
they are not acquainted. They do not asso-
ciate in the daily social life, neither will they
in social events or in the church. Of late
years, we have fewer lectures and more family
parties and dances and children's affairs.
The women and young folks attend lectures
and musicales well; the men do not.
Leclaire is fully established, because all the
people in it want it. They would resist as
treason any attempt to change it. The
employees and customers concerned in the
Nelson Company feel a pride in it; they
approve of it; they will never allow it to be
disrupted. There is a right-minded side to
everybody. That right-minded side is appealed
to in all who live in Leclaire, or are connected
with the Company, or who see it as outsiders.
And its history and its present life prove that
a business run under a cooperative system
can support in peace, plenty, and comfort its
employee-owners in competition with the
capitalistic world around it.
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A BUSINESS LESSON FROM ANTWERP
SPECIAL COURTS FOR COMMERCIAL CASES, WITH BUSINESS MEN AS JUDGES
—EXCHANGES WITH OPEN DOORS, CONSOLIDATED UNDER ONE ROOF
BY
HARRY TUCK SHERMAN
A MONG the most useful institutions in
/A Belgium are the chambers of arbitra-
«*• A- tion, for whose establishment the Ant-
werp Chamber of Commerce is responsible.
Commercial litigation is dealt with by a special
court known as the "Tribunal de Commerce,"
the judges of which are chosen from among the
leading business men of the locality. This
relieves the civil courts of many hundreds of
cases annually. Moreover, to prevent the
hearing of a grain claim (for instance) by a
steel merchant sitting as judge, auxiliary arbi-
tration chambers were founded. There are
now seventeen of them.
Practice and experience show that the
awards of these chambers give the greatest
satisfaction to the trade at large. The arbi-
trators invariably begin by an attempt to con-
ciliate the parties, but if arbitration becomes
necessary the case is usually settled in three
or four days, whereas the ordinary courts
might allow it to drag along for as many years.
The King determines the number of judges
and deputy judges required for each court.
Any merchant or retired merchant twenty-five
years of age or over, who has carried on his
business in a reputable manner for a period
of five years, is eligible for election as judge
or deputy judge. The president and vice-
president must be twenty-seven years of age,
at least, and must be chosen from among the
judges or ex-judges. Merchants and traders
who are municipal voters and who pay a license
of at least $4 have the right to vote for the
judges. After election, the judges receive
their appointment from the King and assume
their duties, their term lasting two years. The
commercial court cannot give judgment unless
three judges, including the president, are
sitting. Deputy judges sit only in the absence
of the judges.
No one may plead before the commercial
court on behalf of a litigant unless he be
specially authorized to do so by the court.
Those who may represent litigants are
attorneys-at-law, solicitors, or persons speci-
ally designated by the court in each case.
In the event of the judges considering them-
selves incompetent in any special detail relating
to a case, experts are appointed by the court
and their decision is accepted by the judges.
The right of appeal to the higher courts exists.
The Tribunaux de Commerce have juris-
diction over all conflicts relating to transactions
considered as commercial acts by the law;
over conflicts arising between partners or
between directors of a company and their
associates; conflicts relating to transportation,
notably by state railway or by post, and over
all matters in bankruptcy.
Experience has shown that far greater satis-
faction is felt at the decisions given by the
judges of these courts than by those rendered
by the judges of the civil tribunals, for the
reason that the commercial judges have a far
greater knowledge of the matters brought
before them than their colleagues in the
other courts*.
Intimately connected with the Antwerp
Chamber of Commerce is the Bourse, the
heart of the business city, where all the trade
and financial interests are concentrated for
two hours during the middle of the day. The
present building was erected at a cost of
nearly $300,000. This is the property of the
city of Antwerp and access to it is free to the
public, except during the hours when the floor
of the exchange is occupied.
Quite unlike our own exchanges, there is
no membership. Strangers and the general
public have access to the floor on the payment
of one franc. This spirit of commercial
liberty is traditional; every registered mer-
chant or broker and every professional man
has the right of transacting his business on
the floor of the exchange during official hours.
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MEN IN ACTION
"S13
Instead of paying a franc, he may take an
annual subscription, which varies according
to the nature of his business. Trades and
professions pay a fixed amount in the form of
a license, and on this license the exchange-tax
is calculated, varying from $2 to $10. All
heads of commercial houses or workmen's
corporations may obtain annual admission
cards for their employees for $1 per annum.
Free service cards are delivered to func-
tionaries, municipal employees, and newspa-
permen. Private individuals whose interests
demand their attendance pay an annual sub-
scription of $3.
This is the absolute concentration of business
interests — the crystalization each day, for
a period of two hours, of all the business and
professional interests of the place. Every
branch of business assembles under the same
roof at the same time, an invaluable economy
of time and a great saving of energy.
The only rules of the Bourse are the police
regulations which the municipality may see
fit to issue. There is nothing to provide for
the exclusion of a merchant save the necessary
measures for the preservation of order. If by
reason of his commercial dealings his presence
becomes obnoxious, he is generally advised,
in a friendly way, not to attend until his situa-
ation has been cleared up.
For convenience and security in the handling
of stocks, bonds, and cash, the city has a small
wing connecting with the Bourse for the use
of bankers, stockbrokers, and exchange agents.
Here, as in the Bourse itself, there are no
restrictions as to membership. The subscrip-
tions are $40 for bankers, $20 for stock and
exchange brokers, $10 for bankers' agents,
and $1 for their clerks.
The floor of the Antwerp Exchange con-
sists of a pit about ninety by sixty feet, sur-
rounded by a slighdy raised platform. Above
this platform is a stone gallery around which
are the offices of the Chamber of Commerce,
the two courts of the Tribunal of Commerce, the
arbitration chambers, the offices of the clerk
of the Tribunal of Commerce, and the Govern-
ment telegraph office.
This again is another concentration, which
enables the busy man to accomplish as much
in two hours as he would in an entire day, if
the institutions were scattered and a different
exchange established in a different part of the
city for every branch of trade.
MEN IN ACTION
MR. JOHN D. SPRECKELS is the
eldest son of the late sugar king,
Claus Spreckels, of San Francisco.
His ambition in life is to make of San Diego
one of the great seaports of the world.
San Diego is in the southwesternmost cor-
ner of the state. One of the most important
dates in its history is the day when young
Spreckels sailed into its beautiful harbor on
his yacht and was struck with its possibilities.
Being a man of business, he was impressed
with the absence of shipping in the magnif-
icent bay. He considered the climate and
felt that it would make possible a horticultural
development of great magnitude. Only money
and enterprise were needed to make a commer-
cial community spring up on the shores of the
bay, and he started with characteristic energy
to carry out the dreams that had been dreamed
by the people of that region for decades.
Ancient horse-cars crept along the streets;
they were converted into electric cars. There
was a scarcity of water even for drinking pur-
poses; Mr. Spreckels sent his engineers into
the mountains and they built the Otay dam,
which impounds enough water to last San
Diego for three years, even if no rain should
fall during that period. All the coal, pig iron,
cement and fire-brick used there had been
imported from abroad, via San Francisco;
Mr. Spreckels began bringing them direct
from England. He put on a line of sailing ves-
sels to bring coal from Australia. The old
way of handling coal was to dump it on the
wharves, shovel it into carts, and then dump it
again where it was wanted. He built bunkers
with a capacity of 13,000 tons, and reduced
the problem of handling to the simplest terms.
Next, Mr. Spreckels acquired an interest in
the Coronado Beach Hotel and gradually
became the sole owner. Meanwhile, he bought
city property and ranch after ranch. His
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12514
MEN IN ACTION
holdings grew rapidly, and his faith in the
future of the city never wavered.
Finally, it seemed imperative that an out-
let directly to the East be opened for the
products of the county, as well as to admit
the goods seeking admission from the East.
The people believed that a direct line was
essential for their prosperity. Mr. Spreckels
and his brother Adolph organized the San
Diego and Arizona Railroad, which was sur-
veyed as straight as the mountainous char-
acter of the country would permit, through the
rich Imperial valley almost directly eastward to
Yuma, 200 miles. Part of the road is already
in use, and a large force is at work on the rest
The two brothers have already spent about
$2,000,000 in building the road, and it will
cost them more than $6,000,000 before it is
completed. Mr. Spreckels admits that he
is not building it to operate. He says that he
is no railroad man, and he hopes that some
one will buy it; but if not, then he may run it
himself. A man who managed his father's
business for years, and who rims steamship
and sailing-ship lines, hotels, street-car lines,
great ranches, and sugar-beet factories, to
say nothing of two metropolitan newspapers
(the San Francisco Call and the San Diego
Union), will probably be able to manage a
railroad if necessity requires it
San Diego, under his stimulus, has doubled
its size in the 1^3t four years; "and," says Mr.
Spreckels, "we shall double it again in three
years more." After that will come the inter-
national exposition in 1915 to celebrate the
opening of the Panama Canal.
MR. JOHN F. STEVENS was recently
appointed President of the Oregon
Trunk Line Railroad, a little road that is to
be built from the Columbia River down into
the heart of the neglected country.
The task looks small for a man who served
as chief engineer of the whole Great Northern
system, and was called to the gigantic task of
building the Panama Canal. But, in truth,
it is no small nor unimportant task. It puts
Mr. Stevens in the front as the new hope and
salvation of Oregon.
For to-day, as yesterday, Mr. Stevens is
a "Jim Hill man." His new appointment
means that the long railroad deadlock in
Oregon is to be broken, and that the huge
unpeopled area of that state, which is as big
as New York, is to get a real railroad. It is
to be no little spur-line built to be sold, but it
is to be a new railroad, built to operate, de-
signed to make those millions of acres of land
worth money, and to bring Oregon into the
list of great wheat states.
* The task is a big one, and the man also is
big. His experience carried him into the
front with the men that built the early trans-
continentals in Texas, in Colorado, in Wash-
ington, in Canada. His regime in Panama
was short; and he has never told just why he
left Lately he has been on the New York,
New Haven & Hartford road, with Mr. E. H.
McHeniy as chief engineer. It was hard to
guess just why he was there; but the spirit
of these northern people is hard to analyze.
Mellen, of the Northern Pacific; McHenry,
also of the old Northern Pacific and then
of the Canadian Pacific; and Stevens, of
the Great Northern and the same Canadian
Pacific — they flocked together in a tame
country to do what could be done. But the
call of the mountains is strong; and Stevens
answered it at the first hint of work to do.
ON MAY 9, 1901, there was a panic in Wall
Street, on account of the fight between
the Hill-Morgan group and: the Harriman-
Kuhn-Loeb group of financiers for control of
the Northern Pacific. In the midst of the
fight, a cable message went across the Atlantic
Ocean, offering to pay Lord Strathcona a huge
sum of money — said to be $8,000,000 — for
his stock in the Northern Pacific. The gist
of the reply was:
"I promised not to sell it."
The promise had been given years before.
It was made to Mr. James J. Hill. There
was no written contract; and it was even said
that there was no definite promise. It was
simply an understanding between the two men.
On account of it, the Scotch-Canadian baron
refused a cash profit of close on $7,000,000, to
be made out-of-hand.
On the same day, the late John S. Kennedy,
a Wall Street banker then in Europe, received
the same offer. In his case, the report is, the
sum was $6,000,000, and the profit would
have been $5,000,000. The offer was refused
without the least hesitation.
Mr. Kennedy came back to New York in
June, and it was he that proposed the formation
of the Northern Securities Company, to safe-
guard the Northern Pacific and Great Northern
from such raids in the future..
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^fmmm
LT- -•:•
a ;;• »; ' " ' m m inn " m 1 - ■ n ■ mm \ « ■ hm
"PSfe $$
*' The Standard for 60 Years n
ONDS
JD AkJI If Av/ JL
The test of time has only
served to strengthen confi-
dence in the efficacy of
Pond's Extract.
Soothing, Refreshing
and Healing
The Most Useful Household Remedy
Ask your druggist for
POND'S EXTRACT. Sold
only in sealed bottles— never
sold in bulk* Refuse all sub-
stitutes.
':?&£§
QQ .jftMHBfm
'DND'S cxTBAf
*OUty& EXTRACT COI^ANY, NEW YORK
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that won't smart or dry on the face1
The quick, easily obtained, lasting lather produced
by Williams1 Shaving Stick, not only makes shaving a
short and agreeable operation, but exercises a softening,
■oothing, refreshing effect u the face.
Add to this the fact that Williams' Shaving Stick
is put up in a convenient and attractive nickled box, with
the hinged cover-top, and you m why any
man who shaves himself should always use this particular
kind of shaving soap,
Williams' Shaving Stick sent on receipt of price,
25 cents, if your fails to supply you. A sample
stick (enough for I cents if
Conn,
Ask your dnunrist for Williams' Jersey Cream Toilet Soap.
THK WORLD'S WORK PRESS, NKW YORK
Highways of PrfigifessSe JAMES J. HILL
New York compared in height with the Shoshone Irrigation Dam
in Wyoming
doubleday; page ^company; newyork
* * * WILLIAM HEINEMANN; LONDON * **
Victor Double-faced Records
10 -inch 75 cents; 12 -inch $1.25
Perfect-est
Ajnew word ! But a new word is needed
to describe the height of perfection reached
in the new Victor Records.
So *great is the improvement that we
made over, at a cost of a half-million dol-
lars, practically our entire list of Victor
Records — records universally acknowledged
to be perfect.
And the result is a record that plays
clearer and sweeter and better than ever
before.
Take one of your old Victor Records to any
dealer's and hear it in comparison with a new
Victor Record with the same selection.
And be sure to hear the Victrola.
Victor Talking Machine Co.
Circdrn, N. J r V. B- A.
Hcrliner Grain uplti.mc Oj-+ Monlir.il, tan,iili.\n Distributor*.
To %et best result* me on]y
Victor NecdJn an Victor Rtcnrdi
Victor Single-faced Records,
10 -inch 60 cents ; 12-inch $1
Victor Red Seal Records,
10- and 12 -inch, $1, $1.50, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7
New Victor Records are on sale at all dealers on the 28th of each month ->
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The World's Work
WALTER H. PAGE, Editor
CONTENTS FOR FEBRUARY, 1910
DELIVERING SPEECHES IN WASHINGTON TO A DINNER
PARTY IN NEW YORK
THE MARCH OF EVENTS— An Editorial Interpretation -
(With full -page portraits of Associate -Justice Horace H. Lurton, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Mr. Edwin Hawley,
. W. J. Calhoun, Minister Chang Yin Tang and his two daughters, King Albert of Belgium, Admiral von
Holzendorff, and Admiral Sir Arthur K. Wilson ; John Muir and John Burroughs in the Yosemite; statue of Lincoln
Frontispiece
- 12517
A NOTE OF WARNING
CLEVELAND, ROOSEVELT, TAFT
PLAYERS OF THE POLITICAL GAME
THE CONSERVATION INQUIRY
FOR FAIR PLAY IN POSTAL RATES
CARIBBEAN AMERICA
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN THE COUNTRY
IS AMERICA CHANGING THE PHYSICAL TYPES
OF MEN ?
LEARNING TO BE GOOD— FOR SOMETHING
THE FOLLY OF BEING MERELY RICH
THE AIRSHIP AND INTERNATIONAL UNITY
IN FIFTY ^EARS
WHY ENGLAND LOVES ITS LORDS
AFTER LEOPOLD— WHAT?
WHAT EVERY BUYER OF IRRIGATION BONDS SHOULD KNOW
SWAPPING HORSES FOR INSURANCE -----
WHAT I TRIED TO DO IN MY LATEST BOOK
I. Why I Wrote "From My Youth Up"
Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster
II. Why I Wrote "A Girl of the Limberlost"
Mrs. Gene Stratton-Porter
THE WAY TO HEALTH:
Should Doctors Tell the Truth? Author of "How I Got Well"
THE TROUBLE WITH THE TEACHER:
The Protest of a Contented Teacher -
What is the Trouble with the School-teacher?
William McAndrew
THE CONFESSIONS OF AN INSPECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS
Benjamin Brooks
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER (Illustrated)
II. Florentine Years in Retrospect - Elihu Vedder
ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT? (Illustrated)
William Bayard Hale
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
VIII. A Visit to the Old Home -
HAPPY HUMANITY (I)
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS (Illustrated)
IV. Our Wealth in Swamp and Desert
THE BUILDING OF A MONEY TRUST -
MEN IN ACTION -
terms
- Alexander Irvine
Frederik Van Eeden
- James J. Hill
C. M. Keys
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$3.00 a year;, single copies, 25 cents. For Foreign Postage add $1.28; Canada, 60 cents.
Published monthly. Copyright, 19 10, by Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved. Entered at the Pobt-officc at New York, N. Y., as second-class mail matter.
Country Life in America The Garden Magazine-Farming
\5\\ Heyworth Building DOUBL1LDAY, PAG1L & COMPANY, 133 East Sixteenth Street
F. N. Doubleday, President § ^"houston^ f Vice-Presidents H. W. Lanier, Secretary S. A. Evemitt, Treasurer
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P ja:; 88 r ;■
Worlds Work
FEBRUARY, 1910
Volume XIX
Number 4
Zbe flDarcb of Events
WE are at full-sail again on a sea of
prosperity. Building is going on in
every part of the country. Land-
values, are rising. The railroads have long
trains and no idle cars. Go where you will,
the hotels are full and new ones are going up.
The semi-annual payments of dividends are
exceedingly large. Farmers, manufacturers,
and traders all tell the same story.
A note of warning at such a time sounds
like croaking. Yet men whose memories go
backward any reasonable distance, and who
prefer to look present conditions squarely in the
face, cannot be wholly content. For the cost
of living goes up and up. The pressure of
prices from below is ever harder. At the same
time we are traveling at a pace fixed by the
expectation of indefinite prosperity ahead of us.
Our mood takes color from our hopes. Our
country is indefinitely rich, we say; and we
shall be indefinitely prosperous. We must keep
going forward.
This experience and this mood are justified.
There are good reasons for them, if we keep
a good sense of proportion. But our thought
and our habits can easily outrun our produc-
tivity. Take the productive workers, one by
one, and consider how very little more any
given man can produce this year over his pro-
duction of last year or the year before. Do we go
forward by leaps and bounds in the real work
that counts toward making wealth? We go
forward by leaps and bounds chiefly in those
large collective ways that may deceive us —
by the increase of land values, by the free use
and extension of credit, by those intangible,
Copyright, 1910, by Doubleday,
collective methods of progress which rest quite
as much on the mood of people as on their con-
crete productivity.
Meantime we have the worst and most dan-
gerous system of currency and banking that
can be found anywhere in civilization. Mean-
time, too, we have a system of indirect taxation
whose burdens we cannot measure. Mean-
time, too, for military pensions -alone every
American family pays, on the average, $10 per
year; and this, with our army and navy expense,
makes us heavily burdened while we pity the
encamped and navy-ridden nations of the
Old World. And these things we forget.
Disquieting, too, is the ever-increasing push
of the people for the regulation of corporations.
There is a fundamental righteousness in this
push; but, if the predatory monopolies are not
steadily brought to fair-dealing, ever in the
background will lie organized and angry discon-
tent and possibly the fury of a mob. On the
other hand, however gradual the regaining of
the people's rights in industry, the very asser-
tion of them is disquieting to business — a little
further in the future, if not immediately.
Consequently nothing is certain, for any long
period, in political action as it may touch the
prosperity of industry.
While the tide is coming in, then, and most
winds are favorable — this is a time to be as
prudent as you are bold in business, as honest
in corporate activity as you are in your private
life, and as sincere in politics as you are in your
personal affairs. The final test is the test of
character; and our public character is noth-
ing but the aggregate of personal character.
Page & Co. All rights reserved.
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I
f
„,„^ J USTICE HORACE H. LURTON, OF TENNESSEE
WHO, AT THE AGE OF Qi v
wr ^IXTY-SIX, HAS BEEN APPOINTED TO THE SUPREME COURT
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MR. GIFFORD PINCHOT
I'hotoyrap h by 1
REMOVED BY THE PRESIDENT FROM THE POST OP CHIEF FORESTER, WHOSE GREAT CAUSE
WILL WIN WHATEVER THE RESULT OF THE CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION NOW IN PROGRESS
[See " The Conservation Inquiry," fage t*S3*\
Photograph by Brown Bros., N. Y.
THE HEART OF THE BANKING WORLD
THE CUPOLA IN THE FOREGROUND IS ON MR. J. P. MORGAN'S OFFICE. THIS PICTURE WAS MADE IN
NOVEMBER, 1907. SINCE THAT TIME, THE MORGAN INFLUENCE HAS REACHED THE FOLLOWING
GREAT FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS: (i) HANOVER NATIONAL, (2) MERCANTILE TRUST, (3) EQUIT-
ABLE TRUST, (4) GUARANTY TRUST, (5) EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE, (6) BANK OF COMMERCE
[St< •■ Tkt Building •/ * Mon<? Trust ," /age /JfrJ]
Copyrtifht, 1909, oy raul i nompson, ti. Y.
MR. EDWIN HAWLEY, "THE STORMY PETREL" OF THE RAILROAD WORLD
"there has hardly been a conflict in the last ten years
in which ep hawley failed to ride with the
r TfcN YMK!>
TOBEM^"by
.»,r.„L... .7 J M ..... HO
**• W' J- CAI.
THE NEW AMERICAN MINISTER TO CHINA
HOUN, THE CHICAGO LAWYER WHO HAS SUCCEEDED MR. CHARLES R
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KING ALBERT, NEPHEW AND SUCCESSOR TO LEOPOLD OF BELGIUM
THE YOUNG KING WHO HAS PROMISED THAT THE BELGIAN RULE IN THE CONGO SHALL BE HUMANE AND PROGRESSIVE
' {Stt ' 'A/ttr Uoficld— IVkatV ' page 19539}
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THE NEW HIGH ADMIRAL OF THE GERMAN NAVY
ADMIRAL VON HOLZENDORFF, WHO HAS SUCCEEDED PRINCE HENRY OF
PRUSSIA AS THE HEAD OF GERMANY'S RAPIDLY INCREASING FLEET
[See "England and Germany: Will They AY
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THE NEW "FIRST SEA-LORD" OF THE BRITISH NAVY
ADMIRAL SIR ARTHUR K. WILSON, WHO SUCCEEDED ADMIRAL JOHN FISHER.
HE HAS HAD ACTIVE SERVICE IN THE CRIMEA, CHINA, EGYPT, AND SOUDAN
[See "England and Germany: Will They Fight," page i*S7']
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Google
Copyright. 1909. hv F. B. Clatworthy
JOHN BURROUGHS AND
NEITHER MAN NOR THE SCENERY
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JOHN MUIR IN THE YOSEMITE
EVER HAD BETTER COMPANIONSHIP
Copyright, 1909, by F. B. Clatworthy
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"LINCOLN, THE RAIL-SPLITTER"
STATUE BY MR. CHARLES J. MULLIGAN, EXHIBITED AT THE CHICAGO OUTDOOR SCULPTURE EXHIBIT
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THE PLAYERS OF THE POLITICAL GAME
"531
CLEVBLAHD, ROOSEVELT, TAFT
IT IS interesting to compare the struggles
of the three Presidents of our time who
saw clearly the encroachments of Privilege on
political power and strove to push it back.
Cleveland made a breach in the wall; but,
because of a lack of the real quality of popular
leadership or because of the lack of a party
that had courage, what he achieved was
quickly undone. Roosevelt, having unusual
qualities of popular leadership, either lacked
the power of patient codperation or encountered
an opposition with which cooperation meant
only surrender. He formulated and organized
revolt, but he did not entrench it behind
enactments. Taft, judicial, patient, hoping
to avoid both these misfortunes, is trying to
hold his party intact behind him and thus to
force Congressional action. It is an interesting
situation.
If Mr. Taft develop the rare quality of
vigorous leadership, he will achieve a brilliant
success by putting on the statute-books laws
that fix the Roosevelt agitations and convert
them into continuous forces. Or, that failing, a
leader among the "Insurgents" may win. More
dramatic still, if the well-entrenched "Stand-
patters " should prevent advance by any Repub-
lican faction, the Democrats will have such an
opportunity as they have not had for more than
half a century. Yet never since the party was
born were leaders so few or feeble.
The only thing that is certain is that the
control of the Government by the state of
mind which Mr. Aldrich represents in one end
of the Capitol and Mr. Cannon in the other
end, does at last seem doomed.
THE PLAYERS OF THE POLITICAL GAME
THESE are the players of the political game
at Washington — the " Standpatters "
who control the Republican majority in Con-
gress; the Republican "Insurgents;" the Demo-
cratic minority; and the President.
The Standpatters are the most skilful,
the best organized, the longest in power. In
the fight that is before them now, for their lives
and for the Interests that they serve, they are
cunning enough to yield — to take a corpora-
tion tax, for instance, in order to avoid an
income tax. They are the best masters of the
game, the most unscrupulous, and now the
hardest pressed. Except during brief periods
under Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Roosevelt, they
have been dominant in our national life as long
as most men can remember. They have that
state of mind which has driven the people to
revolt for two or three political generations.
They provoked the Granger anti-railroad legis-
lation, the Cleveland tariff revision, the free
silver craze; they drove the Democrats to such
desperation as made Mr. Bryan's leadership
possible. They forced Mr. Roosevelt, in his
stand for a square deal, into ineffectual, open
warfare. They have continually provoked
revolt; but, except at short intervals, they have
held their power for several political generations
by yielding just in time to prevent revolt from
becoming successful. This long dominance
has culminated in the vulgar and brutal tyranny
of Speaker Cannon in the House (and what a
depth of cynical brutality that is I) and in the
practically complete triumph of the Senate
in revising the tariff upward in the face
of the President's promise to revise it down-
ward.
The Republican Insurgents have the future
in their hands, if they have the courage to seize
it. They have the people behind them as no
other group in Congress has. They are bold
— at home. Some of them are courageous at
Washington. But the wish and the necessity
of their holding and securing committee-
appointments, their personal entanglements,
their relations to their dominant associates
in all the routine work of Congress, party
loyalty — all the forces of intimate associa-
tion with their enemies and masters — make
open and continuous revolt exceedingly diffi-
cult. They, therefore, may or may not prove
equal to their opportunity. So long as they are
content merely to skirmish, they will be
whipped. So long as they compromise, they
will be absorbed. Only that born and belliger-
ent radical, Senator La Follette, has shown
himself incapable of any compromise.
The Democratic minority, having lost its
sincerity about tariff reform and hopelessly
lacking leaders, are mere insincere watchers
of the game, expecting to profit by the quarrel
of their enemies rather than by any positive
work of their own. Even if they should win
a majority in the House, in this negative way,
they would have no secure power nor would the
public welfare gain. They lack leaders. They
lack aims.
All these are playing the game — two groups
without sincerity and the other with a yet hesi-
tating courage. And the only sincere influ-
ence is the President's. He is, and he feels
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
himself to be, the direct representative of the
whole people. He has made out a large pro-
gramme, and he has made compromises to
secure the codperation of Congress.
President Roosevelt, partly by Mr. Taft's
help, did the same thing. But Congress would
not cooperate with him. He tried to force it
and in the main he failed. He thoroughly
aroused public sentiment, but he fell short of
writing his most important proposals on the
statute-book. President Taft dislikes public
agitation. He wishes quietly to work out great
concrete results — by good management to
reduce to laws the Roosevelt agitations.
The decisive question for him is whether the
Tyrants are sufficiently scared to accept his
compromises.
THE CONSERVATION IN QUIRT
TT7HATEVER may come from the Con-
W gressional inquiry into the conduct of
the Land Office and the Forestry Bureau, as
a result of the so-called Pinchot-Ballinger con-
troversy, the cause of Conservation will be
strengthened by it Few things in life, full of
uncertainties, are as uncertain as the findings
of a Congressional investigation; but, if this
investigation be held in the open, few things
are so certain as the final verdict of public
opinion.
Justly or unjustly, the Secretary of the
Interior is under suspicion in a large part
of public opinion of having tried to serve
special interests, rather than the public wel-
fare, in land claims and coal claims; and
there was no frank and honorable course
for Mr. Ballinger or the Administration to
pursue but to demand an investigation.
Justly or unjustly, the Forestry Bureau is
under suspicion in a part of public opinion of
having permitted its zeal for the public welfare
to outrun the technical letter of insufficient
laws, till better laws could be enacted. But
it can have nothing to fear from a fearless
investigation, for all its acts have necessarily
been done in broad daylight; and, if it has
made mistakes, they have been mistakes in
behalf of the public and not in behalf of any
personal or corporate interest.
The suspicions that are held of the Secretary
of the Interior and the suspicions that are held
of the Bureau of Forestry differ in this import-
ant respect — that one is suspected of serving
private and corporate interests too zealously
and the other of too zealously serving the
public. And, whatever standard of judgment
the investigating committee may set up, the
public standard of judgment will be the stand-
ard set by the Forestry Bureau — that the
public welfare must come before any private
or corporate interest There will be no dipping
back from this judgment
And the setting-up and firm-fixing of this
standard of judgment is, perhaps, the greatest
single achievement of our public life during
the last decade. It can be said of Gifford
Pinchot, as of no other man living, that he
has changed the thought of the dominant part
of our whole people on our most fundamental
problem and set up a new standard of
judgment.
It is a misfortune for Mr. Taft's administra-
tion that in its very beginning such a contro-
versy should distract time and thought that
ought to be given to other large subjects that
he has set out to further; but in no event can
the main matter suffer; for the investigation
will so focus public attention on Conservation
as to hasten the enactment of laws that wiU
enable the public to hold fast to all that it has
won by the agitation of the subject The
important fact is that no party and not even
any man of influence now stands openly for
putting obstacles in the way of Conservation.
And, if the Congressional committee be not
entirely frank and fair, higher waves of insur-
gency will rise than have yet flowed in.
Of greater importance than the inquiry
or than the official fate of any public officer
is the situation that confronts Congress itself
aud the Administration. If adequate laws
for the wise use and preservation of our
great natural resources be not enacted at
this session, no explanation will ward off
severe condemnation.
FOR FAIR PLAT IN POSTAL RATES
THE Postmaster-General (and the President
following him) recommends to Congress
that the postal rate on magazines be increased
in order to lessen the deficit of the postal ser-
vice. This is a proposal that a magazine of
serious aim is itself somewhat embarrassed
in discussing, lest it be thought to make merely
a plea for its own profit Yet the truth is,
very few magazines yield a profit worth being
embarrassed about And there is a very much
larger aspect of the subject
The Postmaster-General proposes to increase
the postal rate on magazines, but not on
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CARIBBEAN AMERICA
12533
newspapers; and the argument that he makes
rests on a calculation that is obviously
erroneous. He says, for example, that the
average distance over which magazines are
carried is about 1000 miles and that it costs
the Government nine cents a pound to do
this service. The Outlook has very aptly
pointed out that the passenger rate from
New York to Chicago (about 1,000 miles)
is just nine cents a pound for a man weigh-
ing 200 pounds. If the Postmaster-General's
figures are correct, therefore, the railroads
receive as much for carrying magazines as
for carrying heavy passengers.
There are several ways in which the deficit
might be reduced by a businesslike conduct
of the service, without raising the rate for
magazines.
Congressmen and the Government Depart-
ments, under businesslike methods, could pay
postage on letters and documents and produce
and products of all sorts, all of which are now
franked and go free.
The rural free delivery carriers could be
permitted to carry parcels — in a word, we
could have a parcel-post.
But the railroad influence in Congress is
strong; Congress will not give up its franking
privilege; and the express companies defeat
the movement for a parcel-post.
Congressmen depend much also on the news-
papers. Hence a proposal to increase the
postal rate on them would fail. No such
proposal is even made.
Thus the line of apparentiy least resistance
is to separate the magazines from the news-
papers in postal classification and to increase
the magazine rate.
No magazine that is trying to serve its
readers and regards itself as an educational
influence will raise objection to a reasonable
increase of postal rates, provided the magazines
as a class are not discriminated against. If
they are singled out by Departmental or Con-
gressional cowardice and made to pay an
increase while Congress and the Departments
continue to use (and to abuse) the franking
privilege, and newspapers (especially the
"organs" of rural Congressmen and post-
masters) continue to be carried free or at
one cent a pound — then the sense of fairness,
which is the dominant trait of the American
people, will be much offended and justly.
So far as this magazine is concerned, of
course it has no favors to ask. Although its
readers now get the benefit of the present low
postal-rate in the price they pay for it, if the
Government causes an increase in this postal-
rate there will be no complaint, provided
Congressmen themselves also pay postage on
their voluminous magazine, The Congressional
Record, and other things, and provided peri-
odical postage is increased all around. But
if the magazines are to be singled out — that
is not fairness, but plain cowardice and craven
fear of railroads and express companies.
Against such unfair treatment, any maga-
zine with spirit will protest; and we think that
its readers also will protest.
CARIBBEAN AMERICA
THE rights of the Nicaragua affair in its
latest aspects (the Nicaragua affair
being more or less a perpetual thing) are diffi-
cult to make out. Zelaya, Madriz, Estrada,
and the other illustrious and aspiring sons of
the Central American "Republic," belong to
an order of patriots whose thought and manners
are not ours.
What is clear is that the continuous turmoil
in which they are keeping the Caribbean
countries ought to be terminated. The unfor-
tunate people of these lands are entitled to
setded government. The other nations on
the continent are entided to freedom from the
annoyance and the danger to which the Carib-
bean anarchy exposes them. The rule of
Zelaya has been a bloody tyranny marked by
every species of robbery, vice, and cruelty,
which remain the only arts practiced by
the transplanted Spaniard. An incident — a
double murder — happened to call him to the
attention of the people of the United States.
The rule of his successor is likely to be of the
'same nature.
The Washington Government understands
how full of danger the situation is. Venezuela
and Hayti have long been acknowledged to be
the threatening elements in our foreign rela-
tions— skeletons in our closet. It was per-
haps the chief regret with which Mr. Roosevelt
retired from the Presidency that he had not
been able to pull public sentiment up to the
point of supporting him in interfering, par-
ticularly in the island of San Domingo.
Secretary Root had no purpose more at heart
than the confederation of Central America.
Mr. Root's plan was to have Mexico appear
as the patron of order in the disturbed territory.
He felt the desirability of gaining the confi-
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
dence of the better element of Latin- Americans,
prone to childlike jealousy of their big neighbor.
II
There is, of course, no question of land-
grabbing. The United States wants no more
territory — certainly at present wants none
with a large Negro population. It has refused
the offer of the Dominicans to come under
its rule. It has refused the request of a con-
federation of Central America to be admitted
to the Union.
But the practical difficulties are very grave.
A country like Nicaragua ought not to be
dealt with as a full-grown, rational member of
the family of nations; and yet it must be so
dealt with lest we be misjudged. It is unrea-
sonable to expect reasonableness from a
Central American government. As for war,
it would be as ridiculous as for a prize-fighter
to strip for a battle with a baby. There is no
need of a conflict with a turbulent population
numerically about equal to that of Cleveland,
Ohio.
We must work out peace and stability
through diplomacy. But the task is hard
because it is not how to deal occasionally with
a knave like Simon of Hayti, an assassin like
Caceres of San Domingo, or a tyrant like
Zelaya of Nicaragua, but how to reform Carib-
bean America so that it will not be ruled by
knaves, assassins, and tyrants. All the while,
too, we must make sure that other parts of
Latin America have no reason to suspect us
of revolutionary or unfriendly aims.
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN THE COUNTRY
A MAN who went out on December ist
and bought one pound each of the
ninety-six commodities that enter into the
cost of living paid for his collection $9.12.
On the same date a year before, he would have
paid $8.21. The increase is more than 10
per cent. At the depth of the late panic, he
would have gotten the same supply for $7.72.
At the highest point since the Civil War —
March, 1907 — he would have paid for this
material $9.13, or one cent more than in
December.
As a matter of fact, the real living expenses
of the man were higher in December than in
March, 1907. Breadstuffs, provisions, live
stock, and miscellaneous items all showed
increases of 10 to 25 per cent. The prices of
clothing were not advanced, but the grades
most used were higher. Big reductions in
chemicals, metals, and other substances that
are not of direct importance to the housewife
or the laborer tended to bring down the
average.
Here are a few vital figures, the comparison
being made with March, 1907, because that
date was the highest general average in half a
century. If comparison be made with 1896,
the result is simply startling.
COMPARATIVE COST OF HOUSEHOLD NECESSITIES
Dec., 1909
March, 1907
July, 1896
Flour, per barrel .
*5-3°
$3-35
$3-25
Beef, per pound
.09
.08
•05S
Milk, per quart .
■10S
.04
•03
Eggs, per dozen
■36
.29
"5
Ham, per pound
■H5
14
.IO
Butter, per pound
•34
■335
•IS
Sugar, per pound
•°5i5
.046
.049
Potatoes, 180 pounds
i-5°
i-So
•75
Peas, per bushel .
2.30
i-5o
1 05
Wool, Boston, per
pound
•35
•32
.16
Cotton prints, per
yard ....
.04
•045
.024
Tobacco, per pound
•i75
•14
.11
These are but a few of the staple supplies of
life. It is a good time to get down to hard
thinking and figure on what can be done to
stop the steady upward climb. The country
is barely out of a panic, in which men suffered
very severely. The occurence of such a price
level so short a time after an industrial panic
is a new phenomenon. And it is not a favor-
able sign. It points to a conclusion that the
arrested panic of 1907 did not do its destined
work.
II
The causes of such a strange condition are
best left to the economists. The huge flow of
gold from the mines of the world, the extrava-
gance of the living scale, the desertion of the
farms for other modes of life, the sudden expan-
sion of credit after a squeeze, the sharp demand
for labor at high prices with the consequent
increase in cost of production, the high prices
for corn and wheat and cotton abroad, the
tariff — all these and many other minor causes
contribute to make a condition that has called
for comment from the President and from the
most humble of the people.
Ill
In a city near New York, the officers of a
charity bureau found it necessary, late in the
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THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN THE COUNTRY
12535
year, to ask for light work that could be done
at home by women. The making of children's
clothes, dressing of dolls, mending, fancy-
work, and kindred pursuits were the lines in
which a field for endeavor was sought.
The line of industry, heralded from such a
quarter, led to questions. It developed that
the work was sought for women of what one
might call the salaried class, wives of young
men working as clerks in a big insurance com-
pany, of stenographers in the courts, of clerks
of all sorts.
The fact might as well be stated flatly. The
cost of living toward the close of the year —
and it is no better but probably worse to-day
— overran the limit of the average man. The
margin between the point where ends meet and
where they overlap is slight at best in such
households. The rise of prices all along the
line wiped out that margin; and women had
to step into the breach and earn their Christ-
mas funds. It is a grim commentary upon
this short era of prosperity.
IV
This is a minor result. The larger results are
grimmer in the passing, and more pregnant for
to-morrow. Many thousands of railroad
switchmen have been on strike in the North-
west, making demands that mean, if they are
even partially successful, an inevitable rise
in railroad rates. The men must have ad-
vances, or they cannot live. Somewhere,
something has to go. The Pennsylvania
Railroad, perhaps the most far-seeing of the
corporations in its dealings with its army of
men, settled a dispute that looked like a series
of strikes. The settlement meant larger cost
of running that railroad.
In Pittsburg, the centre of the steel trade,
a huge strike was threatened. Here, the
corporation had made many of its strongest
employees stockholders, under the profit-
sharing plan, and felt strong enough to hold
its position. At best, such a safeguard against
labor trouble is hardly in line with the estab-
lished principles of economics. It means the
subjugation of the interests of the weaker and
poorer members of the laboring body to the
self-interest of the stronger.
In New York, where the making 'of clothes
has its centre, 40,000 girls went on strike for
various reasons, many of them sentimental.
The result of the strike will probably be the
bettering of conditions; and almost certainly
the raising of the cost of production of shirt-
waists for women — not so trifling a matter as
it seems at first glance.
These are but the larger incidents. The
smaller — of the same general kind — spread
from coast to coast The facts are grim
enough.
The following commentary on the conditions
is quoted from Ttie Wall Street Journal, which
printed it as a solemn warning to the financial
interests of the country:
"High prices for commodities are at the root of
the labor unrest. They are grinding the citizen
of the middle or professional class as he was never
bruised before. The problem underlies the whole
political and financial situation of the day, per-
sistent, subtle, all-pervading, beyond measure
menacing; and our administrators, not only in
Washington, but in our great industries, even talk
of a further increase as if there were no limit.
Past history has shown us where such an edifice
of prices has toppled over, bringing with its ruin
the collapse of other structures. A little more
pressure of the kind and there can be no question
that the protective duties of this country will be
cut to the bone, if the Congressional election of
1910 can do it. Prices must come down, and a
compulsory reduction in the cost of the nec-
essaries of life is likely to be imposed upon the
large and even beneficent corporations, as a demand
which can be enforced by the public will under the
powers which the Sherman Anti-Trust Law appar-
ently gives. This is no over-statement of the case,
but a plain warning of which every interest in the
country may well take heed."
Meantime, a little incident in New York
financial circles has its significance. The
Bowery Savings Bank is the biggest and the
strongest savings bank in the United States.
It has more than $100,000,000 deposits,
mostly drawn from the savings of the people
of the East Side. This bank, and one or two
others, reduced the rate of interest payable
to depositors from 4 per cent, to 3^ per cent.
The reason is that prices of bonds, mortgages,
and other standard investments have gone
so high that the bank cannot earn 4 per cent,
net on its deposits.
It is time to take thought for to-morrow.
It is not time to throw away the safeguards of
business caution and plunge blindly into
excesses, either in the markets, in commerce,
or in manufacturing. Something has to stop.
What will it be?
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
IS AMERICA CHANGING THE PHYSICAL TYPES
OF MEN?
IN all physical studies of the human family,
one fact seemed secure above all others —
that the race is clearly divided into broad-
headed and long-headed persons. This law
seemed stable. Complexion, stature, color of
eyes and hair, shape of nostril, might vary,
but the child of long-headed parents was sure
to be born with a long head, and a broad-
headed child with a broad head. But the Immi-
gration Commission's agents report that the
American-born child of broad-headed immi-
grants has a narrower head than its parents,
while the American-born child of immigrants of
a long-headed race has a broader head than its
parents. Measurements of 26,000 New York
persons seem to Professor Boas, the anthropol-
ogist, to indicate that the American environment
tends rapidly to develop a distinctly new type.
It is truly astonishing that the first genera-
tion of races transplanted to a new land should
show such a change in this stable particular
of the shape of the skull. That climate in
the course of centuries works its mysterious
will on immigrant stocks is well known. It
has been predicted by anthropologists that the
long-headed blonds who originally conquered
North America will not be able to maintain
themselves here, and disquieting evidence
has been offered of the decline of the North-
of-Europe stock transplanted to this country.
It has also been recognized that among chil-
dren of unmixed blood, conditions here seem
favorable to the tall, gaunt, black type, of
which Abraham Lincoln is often referred to as
a sample. Attention has often been called to the
likeness of men of this type to the American
Indian. The results of racial intermarriage,
which takes place here on a scale such as has
never elsewhere been known, is often discussed.
But it has not been imagined that, indepen-
dent of intermarriage, and so soon after arrival,
such an astonishing transformation as Professor
Boas's investigations indicate could take place
here, or on any soil to which immigration has
ever moved.
Perhaps a similar change is taking place
in Europe also; perhaps the old division into
long-heads and broad-heads is not so hard
and fixed as the scientific men have supposed;
and perhaps a surprising change is taking place
in our climate. But we shall need more in-
formation before we are safe in reaching any
revolutionary conclusion.
LEARNING TO BE GOOD -FOR SOMETHING
DR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON has
recently completed a tour of the principal
cities of Tennessee — the fourth Southern state
which he has covered in an effort to see how
the Negroes were prospering. In one of his
speeches, which were listened to by both whites
and blacks, and which were widely and cordially
published in the Southern press, he said :
"Everything, it seems to me, to tear the races
apart, to create friction and unrest, has occurred
that can occur; and I believe that we have gotten
to the point now where both races have made up
their minds that in the future we are going to live
together in a higher degree of mutual helpfulness
and peace and friendship than ever in the past.
"In every portion of the South, I find that
when one goes into a community in nine cases out
of ten the relations between the individual Negro
and the individual white man are closer than they
are in any other part of the country. Every Negro
has a white friend; every white man has a Negro
on whom he can depend."
This is an honest opinion of the man most
qualified to judge. He has seen the past,
understands the present, and is helping to
shape the future.
He reminds the many who have a less cheer-
ful view of the situation that:
"We of both races in the South have suffered
much by reason of the fact that the worst that
occurs in the South is spread speedily in all parts
of the world, while the best things which are con-
stantly occurring in each community are seldom
known outside of that community."
And after enumerating some of the schemes
for the solving* of the Negro question, he
ridicules those who indulge in this "problem"
by describing the failure of the many schemes
for solving it, and adds:
"But still they go on solving the Negro problem,
and I suppose the Negro has stood more tests and
more solutions than any other man that is known."
His own method for improving the con-
dition of the Negro is illustrated by his story
of the Negroes of the old regime — who were
taught only that they must be good. "Nowa-
days," he adds, "they are taught to be more
than good — to be good for something."
THE FOLLY OF BEING MERELY RICH
WHEN Mr. John S. Kennedy died, a
Western correspondent who sends
syndicated copy to newspapers wrote a little
article about him and sent it out to his eleven
papers. Six of the editors printed it. One
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THE AIRSHIP AND INTERNATIONAL UNITY
i*S37
of the five wrote a note to the correspondent,
in the course of which he said:
"I know who John S. Kennedy was, dimly;
but there are not more than a dozen men in this
county who ever heard of him."
The value of Mr. Kennedy's estate was more
than $60,000,000; and in his own world few
names were better known. The pity of it is
that from the time he first acquired wealth to
the day he died, his money had been devoted
to the uses of the empire-builder. He stands
among the big half-dozen in the making of
the great Northwest, so far as money-interest
is concerned.
To one who reads the papers carefully, it
is increasingly evident that millionaires are far
too common nowadays to attract much atten-
tion from the world merely on account of their
wealth. They must do more than make
money. Mr. Lockhart, who died in Pittsburg
a few years ago worth about $80,000,000, was
a retired capitalist. He had been well enough
known in his day, and in his own circle —
but who in the big outside knows anything of
Mr. Lockhart? Much smaller fortunes made
men national wonders twenty years ago.
To-day men whose fortunes run into eight
figures die, excite a momentary wonder —
and then the public forgets.
Mr. Harriman will not be forgotten so
soon — but it is not the extent of his fortune
that has left his memory a monument. Mr.
Leeds, whose fortune reached over $45,000,000,
created little tangible proof of his existence
— and so he passes.
Here, in New York, fortunes of seven and
eight figures come to light each month —
usually following an obituary notice. A mer-
chant whose death was scarcely heralded last
spring turns out to have left more than
$6,000,000. Another man, unknown to fame,
leaves $4,000,000 to charity. A quarter of
that sum, given to the same cause in his life-
time, would have made his name known
across the continent.
Fame has strange vagaries. It follows
hard endeavor, bizarre employment, reck-
lessness, courage, integrity beyond the usual
— but seldom does it light upon hoarded gold.
THE AIRSHIP AND INTERNATIONAL UNITY
WHEN a practical man of affairs like
Secretary Knox utters it, the idea
ceases to appear visionary. It is Secretary
Knox who says that the airship must be taken
account of as a factor making for International
unity. "There can be no doubt," says the
Secretary of State, " that the airship will before
long be used as a means of communication.
It is likewise free from doubt that its use will
bring the nations much closer together." The
Secretary foresees the necessity of international
conferences to regulate the new traffic, and
comments that " the trend of the times is toward
international unity, which at the same time
preserves national organization."
There has been too little reflection on the
future which the aeroplane has made possible.
We refuse to think how vast a new world will
be opened when aerial travel becomes com-
mon; how vast must be the changes which it
will introduce in our habits, ideas, and insti-
tutions. When man becomes an inhabitant of
a third dimension, life will be a thing enlarged,
widened, and enriched beyond all present
conception — life will be a cube where it is
now a square. Imagination seems too faint-
hearted to allow itself to contemplate the time
in which the abode of man shall not be alone
the surface of the earth. Yet that time is at
hand.
If the imagination does venture into it, it
is checked and bewildered by a thousand
problems.
What, for instance, is to become of national
boundaries? Will walls or fences be extended
upward to the limit of air ? How can frontiers
be guarded, else? How can duties be col-
lected? How can customs tariffs be main-
tained ? Will nations divide the earth's atmos-
phere, as they have divided its surface? Will,
perhaps, new aerial nations be born, owning no
foot of earth or sea? Shall we have veritable
lands of the sky, and patriotic hymns singing
of cloudland hills, as now we have of rocks and
rills? Or will mankind realize its unity, and
political divisions dwindle to mere arrange-
ments of convenience?
An international conference to make aerial
rules of the road has already been held; it was
unofficial, and Secretary Knox did not count it
Official international bodies duly authorized
to deal with the problems of super-surface
traffic will very soon become necessary.
Recent revelations concerning our own custom-
houses show how hard it is to maintain a tariff
when would-be smugglers move on the surface
only; the problem of maintaining it when air-
ships are plying will inevitably press for
solution, if, indeed, it can be solved. It is
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i?538
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
time that we understood that the aeroplane
is about to bring in a new and strange order.
IN FIFTY TEARS
THERE ought to be no reluctance of imagi-
nation. No dream should be too bold to
be dreamed by inhabitants of a world which has
passed through the marvels of the last half-
century. Lord Avebury, writing for the New
York Times the other day, remarked: " Though
not eighty, I am older than any railway com-
pany in the world, any gas company, any steam-
boat company, any telegraph, telephone, or
electric light company."
One need only ponder these words — and
pondering is required before it is possible to
realize that they can be true — to get a sense
of the world of yesterday. No electric light,
no telephone — any man of forty can remem-
ber that he lived in that world, but nobody
can quite remember what it was like. Fifty
years ago all Africa, except its coast, was a
blank on the map; Asia was a dwelling-place
of mystery; Japan was unborn; United Italy
had no existence, and the German Empire
was still a dream. Transportation was primi-
tive; business was done on the basis of the
country store; the feats of modern engineering
were unattempted; electricity was an interest-
ing toy; machinery had only begun its revolu-
tionizing services. Ex-President Eliot's saying
— that the world has been practically remade
in the last half-century — is a moderate and
truthful statement.
Great as has been the material transfor-
mation, the revolution in thought has been
more complete. The great word of Darwin
was spoken only fifty years ago; in science,
history, philosophy, all is new since then.
Telescopic photography, the spectroscope, the
spectro-heliograph, have given new magni-
tude and meaning to the wonders of the
sky, watched tornadoes tear the atmosphere
of the sun, found the terrestrial elements in
far-off stars, and demonstrated the integrity of
the universe, while investigations following the
discovery of radium have revealed every atom
of which the universe is composed as itself a
marvelous structure fashioned in the play of
myriads of corpuscles. Astronomy on the one
hand, chemistry and physics on the other, have
made a new heaven and a new earth. A new
era began for medicine with the recognition
of bacteria. A hundred new materials, and
new methods of obtaining old ones, have been
found by commercial chemistry. To-day we
gather medicines, dyes, and perfumes from coal
tar, and fertilizer from the air. There is a
certain zest, almost a spice of humor, in the
surprises daily afforded by the progress of dis-
covery and invention; they tease the imagina-
tion, daring it to try to match them. What-
ever may be the wonders of another fifty years,
those that have marked the past half-century
must always remain so striking that men will
say of us, as we say of an earlier renaissance,
"bliss was it in that dawn to be alive."
WHY ENGLAND LOVES ITS LORDS
THERE is a delightful thrill in the possi-
bility of so revolutionary a proceeding
as the abolition of the British House of Lords.
American newspaper correspondents in Lon-
don have risen splendidly to their opportunity
in making the most of that possibility. In
sober fact, it does not exist. Had the Lords
in November boldly rejected the radical budget
sent them by the Commons, a wave of popular
indignation might have swamped their House.
By taking the ground merely that they must
give the people themselves the right to pass on
a measure so unusual, the Lords gained an
immense tactical advantage; they robbed the
ajttack on them of half its force. Whatever
be the result of the election, the destruction
of the hereditary House is really out of the
question; its reform is possible.
The fact is, the English like lords too well
to do much to them unless it is absolutely
necessary. It is no great harm to give them
a fright now and then; there has not been a
decade since 1830 in which the peers' chamber
was not threatened. But threatened men live
long. The people are to-day pretty clearly
minded to take their land away from them
(the peers own one-fifth of the total area of
the United Kingdom), but the nation has
always been slow in responding to heated
appeals to deprive the peers of their part in the
business of governing. It is not much of a
part, as it is. Yet, after a fashion, the House
of Lords does serve the purpose of a Second
Chamber. No intelligent man in England
wants to see the fortunes of the kingdom and
empire committed to a single, all-powerful
House, and no responsible man has as yet
proposed a substitute for the House of Lords.
There is a view of this body, not familiar in
America, which regards it less as an assembly
of aristocrats than as a group of naturally
Digitized by VjOOQlC
AFTER LEOPOLD — WHAT?
12539
selected leaders, a group of men of proven
efficiency. Less than one-fourth of the peers
were nobles in 1800. A look over their House
on any night in which business is being trans-
acted would do very little to give the
impression that it is a hereditary Cham-
ber. Prominent among its members would
be observed such men as Lord Kelvin,
Lord Rayleigh, Lord Brassey, Lord North-
cliffe, Lord Curzon, Lord Roberts, Lord
Cromer, and Lord Kitchener.
It is really not to be held against a scientist,
a soldier, a colonial administrator, or a news-
paper proprietor, that he has been given a
"handle to his name"; his knowledge and
ability are just as valuable to his country as
they were before. The English way of recog-
nizing ability is to give its possessor a title and
a seat in Parliament. If that were the Ameri-
can way, we should have a Senate which would
include men like Theodore Roosevelt, J. Pier-
pont Morgan, Wilbur and Orville Wright,
James J. Hill, ex-President Eliot, Admiral
Dewey. It would not be an ideal Senate, but
it would have a lot of good material in it and
be not utterly unserviceable to the country.
It has been said, with some reason, that the
British House of Lords is the most democratic
body in the world, and said again that there is
no assemblage in the world where one could
go for expert advice on any subject, from the
shoeing of a horse to the conduct of a cam-
paign or the behavior of radium corpuscles,
with greater certainty of getting it.
These things might be borne in mind as the
cabled "Sunday stories" tell of the approach-
ing abolition of the House of Lords. , The
weakness of the lords' position in the present
campaign is that they have stepped directly
into the path of the social revolution with
which the English people are determined to
proceed. If the people win easily, the Liberal
party, returned to power, is much more likely
to create a hundred or so new Liberal
peers, thus capturing the House, than it is to
abolish it.
AFTER LEOPOLD -WHAT?
LEOPOLD of Belgium — and of the
Congo — was not so black as he was
painted, chiefly because the man who did most
of the painting made his living by the vividness
with which he daubed on the colors. The
irregularities of the King's private life were
known all over the world — not necessarily
because he was more profligate than some other
monarchs, but because he made no effort to
conceal them; because, also, every act of his
private and public life was eagerly watched
by hired press-agents.
There are many things that might be said
if one cared to take the trouble to champion
the cause of Leopold. He did not make the
fabulous sums that have been repeatedly
mentioned — and the revenues that did come
to him came in the same way that dividends
come to other great builders. He did what no
other European power has done in Africa: he
prohibited the sale of rum to the natives of
his domain. An examination of the annual
reports of the British African colonies for any
year will show that a very large part of their
revenue comes from the importation of rum
and gin.
That there were instances of cruelty and
other abuses of power in the Congo, that there
were serious errors in judgment, that there
were incompetent and culpable men in charge
of important posts — all this was to be
expected. Besides, very few people realize the
strain that must be continually borne by every
official who sits at his post in that blazing zone.
II
King Albert, the new ruler, lacks the ability
of his uncle — for Leopold was, perhaps, the
intellectual and financial giant among the
crowned heads of Europe — but the young
man is evidently in earnest in his determination
to give the Congo a progressive administration.
After all, he has none of the autocratic power
possessed by Leopold, for when the old King
gave to his little country the richest colony in
Africa, that act placed its administration in the
hands of Parliament, and removed the possi-
bility of another dictator.
If we consider the Leopold regime as a closed
incident, there are several reasons for believing
that the welfare of the- Congo natives is as
secure in the hands of the Belgian Government
as it would be under any other European
power.
For the rule of the Congo rests with the peo-
ple, not with the new king or any other man.
The administration in the field is in the hands
of a Governor-General, who is responsible to
a Colonial Secretary, who is responsible to the
Belgian Parliament. Moreover, the press of
the mother country is free and vigilant.
Then, the Belgians are a people to be trusted.
Digitized by V^OOQlC
12540 WHAT EVERY BUYER OF IRRIGATION BONDS SHOULD KNOW
They rank high among the European leaders of
intellectual and social progress; they would
quickly rise against any inhuman acts of their
government; they are jealous of* their national
honor, which they have kept free from the
taint of international trickery.
They are, moreover, as familiar with con-
ditions in the Congo as we are with the Philip-
pines and our other possessions. In the
prolonged debates over annexation, the vexa-
tious problem was threshed out in Parliament
and in the newspapers, in minute detail. The
Governor-General (Baron von Wahis) has
spent years at his trying post; the new king
made a personal investigation of the colony
last spring; and the Colonial Secretary has
gone through the Congo from one end to
another.
The new administration, which has been
in force since November i, 1908, is based upon
one of the most humane and enlightened laws
that controls the destiny of any African division
except Liberia. It has the endorsement of
all the Belgian people except the extreme
Socialists, who antagonize anything that is
supported by organized society. A formal
and dignified protest against the criticism of
the English was signed last November by the
burgomasters of the cities, the heads of the
universities, the presidents of the scientific
societies, the representatives of the department
of justice, and the official heads of the churches.
The names of the Catholic Cardinal, the presi-
dent of the Protestant Synod, and the Jewish
Grand Rabbi are side by side. They ask for
fairness in criticism on the simple ground that
Belgium is a nation that prides itself on its
love of justice and can therefore be trusted.
WHAT EVERY BUYER OF IRRIGATION
BONDS SHOULD KNOW
HUNDREDS of letters come to this
office asking the opinion of The
World's Work concerning the
soundness and integrity of irrigation bonds of
various classes. The letters probably arise
from the fact that the advertisements of
many firms offering these bonds appear in
the magazine every month.
When the question refers by name to a specific
issue of bonds, we can usually give a specific
answer; but many of the questions are general,
and ask for a general opinion. Such a general
opinion is not capable of being expressed.
One may say that the bonds of the Govern-
ment, of the states, and of the larger cities are
absolutely sound. One cannot say the same
in a general statement concerning any other
class of securities. This magazine has failed
of its object if it has not made it quite plain
that a man, to be safe, must learn how to
select investments, and not take them blindly
on the strength of their names. The phrase
"railroad bond" may mean the acme of
safety, or the limit of speculative risk; and
"farm mortgage' ' may mean perfect security,
or it may mean a quick journey to the courts
to collect the first year's interest.
So, too, with irrigation bonds. The issues
offered in this magazine's advertising pages
are not guaranteed by the publishers. We
cannot examine every project for ourselves.
We might send a man out West to look over
them all. His report, if he were an engineer,
would be valuable from that point of view. If
he were a skilled lawyer, versed in the weird
intricacies of irrigation, his report would give
us assurance that the bonds were legally
issued and secured. If he were a soil
analyst, we might be certain that the new
lands would be productive after the water
began to flow in the ditches. If he were a
practical farmer or a fruit-grower, we might
be more certain of the slopes, the exposures,
and the other factors that enter into that
phase of the problem.
Unless every one of these factors and many
others are carefully considered, no buyer of
irrigation bonds has any proper safeguard in
his investment. We cannot do this work.
The buyer cannot do it for himself. The
cost of a legal, engineering, agricultural,
and climatic survey is prohibitive, so far as
the individual is concerned.
The one thing that we, or the buyer, can do
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WHAT EVERY BUYER OF IRRIGATION BONDS SHOULD KNOW 12541
is to take such offerings only from people whose
names and reputations ensure that every
precaution has been taken. If you are offered
bonds of this class by a banker of whom you
never heard, find out about him before you
buy. Here are some cardinal questions that
need answering:
How long has he been in business?
How many issues of this sort has he sold ?
Have any of them defaulted?
What other classes of bonds does he deal in ?
Who is his engineer?
Who is his lawyer?
Of what exchange is he a member?
If of none, with what banks does he do
business?
All references should be carefully looked
into before buying such bonds from a stranger.
In all your dealings, remember that you are
not buying the credit obligations of a standard
railroad, a great industrial, a well-known city,
or any other debtor with whom you are familiar.
You are thinking of becoming a creditor of a
district, a corporation, or a county of which,
probably, you never heard before; and on the
advice of a firm with whom, perhaps, you are
not acquainted at all.
Our advice, then, would be to get acquainted
with the firm at least, and to be perfectly certain
that the acquaintance is based on facts and not
on gilded fictions, before you spend a dollar
on irrigation bonds or any other class of securi-
ties except standard issues.
This article is not an essay about irrigation
bonds. If you want to know about them in
general and in particular, the dealers in them
issue booklets telling the cardinal facts about
them as a class and as individual investments.
I would merely touch upon a few points not
usually detailed at great length in the literature
that is sent out by the banking houses.
Concerning irrigation bonds issued by muni-
cipal districts, whose interest and principal
are collected and paid by counties, there is not
much to say. They are very nearly like
regular municipal bonds. The questions that
a man should ask about them are the same
that he should ask about municipal bonds
issued by towns, counties, or townships of
which he never heard before. The literature
will answer most of the questions. Here are
a few that it may not answer:
How many people now live in this district?
How many individual farms have been sold
init?
How long will It be before they raise
crops?
What percentage of the irrigated land is
already sold to individual settlers?
What percentage is held in large tracts by
speculators?
What has been the income and expense of
the whole county for the last five years?
What debt has the county that comes ahead
of these bonds?
Has this county ever defaulted or delayed
payment of its obligations?
If the answers are satisfactory, and you have
learned that the men who make them are honest
and of good standing, you can buy the bonds
with assurance.
"Carey Act" bonds may be very excellent,
or they may be worthless. It depends, in the
long run, mostly on whether or not the lands
are settled by bona-fide farmers.
One day last summer I stood on the rear
platform of a transcontinental train, talking to
a Montana rancher. He was a college man.
He was dressed in high-boots, corduroy pants,
a flannel shirt, and a sombrero.
"That's our ditch," he said, pointing to a
line that ran along the hillside. We followed
it for some miles. He told me that he and five
partners were bringing in some thousand acres
of valley land.
"I've been through it all," he added, "and
I guess I've made all the mistakes there are.
This one is a go."
"What are some of the mistakes?" he was
asked.
"Well," he said, "about ninety-nine out of
a hundred of these things are mistakes. The
worst is not knowing your land. The next
worst is not knowing your water. If you miss
those two, you trip over your titles. When
you've got all those right, you run out of money
and get closed up by the sheriff. If you dodge
him, you run into a squeeze, and the settlers
won't buy the land from you. If they do, half
of them get homesick, or die, or the wife won't
stay — and they lie down on their contracts and
give you the selling job over again. Anyhow,
a bona-fide buyer is a scarce article in most of
these regions, for there ain't any restaurants,
nor theatres, nor such. They're lucky if
there's a train once a day. That's why this
project is located on the main line of the N. P.
If they get lonesome they can watch the through
trains go by. Anyhow, it's a case of hard buck-
ing all the way."
Digitized by VjOOQlC
12542 WHAT EVERY BUYER OF IRRIGATION BONDS SHOULD KNOW
The last sentence was later explained by the
fact that in other years this particular rancher
had been coach of the Purdue University foot-
ball team, and others.
These remarks apply with equal force to the
bonds or stocks issued by corporations under
the Carey Act and without its help. The
Carey Act, let it be stated, does not guarantee
the bonds. It makes no obligation behind the
bonds, either of Federal Government, state,
county, township, or village. All that the
Carey Act ensures is that certain state author-
ities, more or less competent, have made
an examination, more or less thorough, into
the reliability of the corporation issuing the
bonds, and the state has then set aside the
land. The state has also made certain pro-
visions intended to guard the settlers, not the
bond-holders. The bonds, whether Carey Act
or private, stand upon the value of the property.
In the long run, they depend upon the
ability of the corporation and the state to sell
these irrigated lands to responsible buyers;
and to collect from the buyers the amounts
that they are pledged to pay for the lands and
for the water rights supplied by the corporation.
At the present time, this does not seem to be
a risk. There seem to be uncounted thou-
sands of farmers all over this country who
want those acres. Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming,
Montana, and Oregon call to their borders
as many men as are needed to fill the vacant
lands, once the water is supplied to make them
bloom. Therefore, to-day, tjie risk of the
irrigation bond is minimized in the public
mind.
I met a cautious individual in the far West, a
banking man of wide experience. He came
to the hotel in the middle of the night, because
he did not want to be seen talking to an Eastern
visitor who asked very many questions. He
was one of the few prominent men in that
section of the country who applied to all ques-
tions the careful financial inquisitiveness of the
East and of Europe.
"How about these Carey Act propositions?"
I asked him, after we had talked over the fruit-
land situation.
"The best of them are the best things in
the West," he said, "and the worst of them are
the worst things we have. I have been in
seven of them. I am out of all but one."
"What's the matter with them?"
"When these hard-headed Easterners start
them, they are usually all right unless the
hard-headed Easterners are crooked. If they
are straight, they count on making their money
out of selling the lands and paying off the bonds
they put out, taking the rest of the proceeds
as profits. If they are crooked, they count on
making their profits out of the bonds that they
may be able to issue. That's a regular
dead-fall."
"Are there many like that?"
" There are ten like that to one of the others.
Most of the little ones and some of the big ones
are like that. They don't care whether the
land will grow anything or not. They start out
with a blare of trumpets, announce that a third
or a quarter of the land is already sold to
settlers (their own dummies or mere fools
who have put down ten dollars on a whole
farm) — and the rest is easy. They sell their
securities mostly in the newspapers. I know
one case where one of the heads of the concern,
a young college fellow, peddled the bonds
himself all over New England and sold a
hundred thousand dollars worth in four
months."
"What happened?"
"I think they are still selling bonds." He
looked at me to see how much I knew. "You
don't think it's time for an explosion yet, do
you?"
"Why not?"
"Why, every bit of land that's thrown open
in this country could be sold five times over.
Wait till the colonist trains are running west
empty. The explosions will be so close
together that it will look as if the whole West
has gone to glory!"
The man who said these things was not an
Eastern misanthrope, with sour milk in his
veins. He was a man of experience. He told
me that he bought a Palouse farm in 1894 for
$1 10 cash — a farm whose present owner drives
an automobile and spends the winters in
California. Little grass grows under this
man's feet. He is a wealthy man — perhaps
because he applies strange methods to the test-
ing of Western values.
The burden of proof rests squarely on the
shoulders of the men who would sell to the
conservative Eastern buyer the irrigation bonds
of the West. He must prove, beyond mere
phrases and idle comparisons, that what he
sells is the upper stratum of this great mass of
securities based on the undeveloped equities
of the West. The responsibility of the backing
houses that have introduced these bonds here
Digitized by V^OOQlC
SWAPPING HORSES FOR INSURANCE
1*543
in the East and that to-day are selling them
in millions is the greatest responsibility of its
kind with which my experience has brought
me in contact.
It was paralleled, before my day, many
times. The firms that scattered the mill stocks
of New England into every strong box of those
states assumed it — and with glorious results.
The buyers reaped rich profits, sure incomes,
and solid comfort. The bankers gained glory
and high position. It was paralleled, again,
by the firms that sowed the farm mortgages,
real-estate mortgages, and industrial stocks
of Kansas and Minnesota in the savings banks
of the East in the late 'eighties and the early
'nineties. Read the report of the banking
superintendent of New Hampshire for 1896
to learn the sequel.
The responsible banker, valuing his credit
and the name and honor of his house far beyond
quick profits, goes very far indeed before he
sells irrigation bonds, or any new class of
securities, to his old customers.
If he has gone far enough, investigated with
sufficient care, paid high enough fees to get the
best legal opinions, stood the test of the district
courts, hired real farming, analytical, and
engineering experts to make reports upon which
his judgment may be formed, he can offer for
sale a security that will net well up to 6 per
cent., and that will surely stand the test of time.
In my opinion, irrigation bonds of cor-
porations, under Carey Act, Desert Land Act,
or private, should not be bought by any
Eastern investor unless they are based on a
"going concern"; secured by at least 125 per
cent, (better 150 per cent.) of valid, bona-fide
water-contracts signed by settlers; safeguarded
by provisions that make it certain they will be
retired or balanced by cash in the hands of a
good trustee before any of the revenue from
the lands is used for any other purpose; and
thoroughly attested as to legality and general
bona-fides. Too many of them are mere
construction bonds, relying upon work and
property not yet accomplished or tangible.
The cream of this crop of irrigation bonds
is the cream of the West. But be sure, when
you pay the price for cream, that you do not
get skim milk. C. M. K.
SWAPPING HORSES FOR INSURANCE
TWO neighboring farmers owned each a
gray mare. The mares were valuable
animals, of good blood and endur-
ance, and much alike. The first farmer
insured his beast. The second did not. The
uninsured mare became sick, and finally died.
Early the next morning the two neighbors met,
and in talking over the misfortune devised a
plan to make the most of it. They swapped
animals. The first farmer, who had insured,
hauled the dead beast over to his farm, and
then loaned to his neighbor the well mare.
Then he wrote to the insurance company that
his mare was dead. After a cursory exami-
nation the company paid the claim. The
farmers divided the money, and the live horse
was returned to its owner.
This explains one of the reasons why there
is but one legal reserve live-stock insurance
company in the United States that has been in
business as long as ten years. During that
time there have been many attempts to start
such companies, but only the one has lasted.
The last report of the New York State
superintendent also shows that three assess-
ment associations for insuring live-stock were
insolvent. The failure of these would recall
to many people's minds the defects of assess-
ment insurance of other kinds. The mutual
fire-insurance companies (with several excep-
tions in the mill districts in Massachusetts),
the assessment societies issuing accident
insurance* (with some exceptions of travel-
ing men's associations) and assessment life-
insurance societies are all less stable than
the companies doing the same business on
the legal reserve plan under the supervision
of the state.
But the analogy does not hold in this case.
The three associations which failed in New
York state were 'all in cities — one in Buffalo,
one in Brooklyn, and one in New York. Their
members did not know what animals were
insured, or much of anything about these
societies. People did not take policies in these
associations with any knowledge of the risks
he
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WHAT I TRIED TO DO IN MY LATEST BOOK
accepted or the conduct of the business. They
bought the insurance as a commodity. This
left these associations open to the worst evils
of the assessment system — a lack of regula-
tion by the state and no scrutiny by their mem-
bers. In the cities this would almost neces-
sarily be true.
In the country, however, conditions are
different. A farmers' codperative society, with
a relatively small number of members, can
conduct a live-stock insurance business on a
much safer basis. Every member knows
practically all the animals that are insured.
Killing the animals for their insurance, "swap-
ping gray mares," or any other chicanery at
the expense of the association would be diffi-
cult. The investigation and scrutiny, which
would be expensive for a company at a dis-
tance, would be automatic in an association
covering only a limited farming community.
Among the farmers of this country there are
now about 2,000 cooperative associations,
whose chief object is insurance of various
kinds. In Europe, also, such associations are
of long standing and success. For example,
ten years ago there were 185 local societies in
Baden, all affiliated with the Central Cattle
Re-insurance Association. The local societies
averaged approximately 90 members, and
insured about 340 cattle. Besides the indem-
nification for loss, the societies tend to prevent
loss. Farmers who are known to ill-feed, or
overwork their animals are refused insurance,
and few men are content to be long branded
in that way. When an insured animal is ill,
the owner must immediately notify the society's
veterinary, and this leads to better and more
prompt attention than is usual, and the con-
sequent diminished loss.
The cost of this assessment insurance, both
here and abroad, is low, for the expenses of
management are small; and, as has been
explained, the chance of fraud is small. For
the farmer, the local association is at present
both the safest and cheapest organization in
which to insure.
For the horse-owner in the city, the insurance
question is more difficult. The city assessment
associations have not been safe. The one
American stock company of any stability does
not reach all the states of the Union, and the
largest amount it ever received in premiums
during one year was $183,903.
Some of the larger horse-owners in the cities
have found another institution which will
insure their animals. Though American com-
panies are few, there are American agents a
plenty who handle business for the old London
Lloyd's, which will insure almost anything
from dogs to diamonds. For example, one of
the largest retail coal dealers in New York has
all his teams so insured. The rate varies
from 2 to 7 per cent. This does not, however,
offer any facilities for people who own only one
or two horses, unless they are very valuable,
for it is hardly worth while for the agents to
place less than $1,000 worth of insurance in
Lloyd's.
WHAT I TRIED TO DO IN MY LATEST
. BOOK
I. WHY I WROTE "FROM MY YOUTH UP"
BY
MRS. MARGARET E. SANGSTER
I WROTE "From My Youth Up" at the
solicitation of several charming women
much younger than myself. One and all
of the friends who stood on the same plane
with me, so far as age is concerned, shook their
heads and said: "You would better not." My
family seemed equally reluctant to have me
venture into print with a book about myself,
and I felt uncertain whose advice to take. The
idea once having entered my mind could not
easily be thrust out into the cold. I have never
been noted for caution, and have always liked
to take a risk, and little by little the suggestions
of women still in the heyday of youth prevailed
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WHY I WROTE "A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST"
1*545
above those of the less enthusiastic and more
conservative circle of lifelong acquaintance.
One does not feel old in proportion to the num-
ber of her birthdays, and I know myself still
to be rather more deeply in sympathy with
young girls and young mothers than with
women past the meridian.
Although my experience in some aspects has
been uneventful, in others it has touched many
sides of life. I have lived through and been
part of one of the most stirring and fateful
periods of our country's history. I have been
familiar with, and have had intimate personal
knowledge of home life in widely separated
sections of the land. During the Civil War
there were those very near and dear to me under
Federal and Confederate flags alike. I have
kept house with a retinue and have lived with
the utmost simplicity in four little rooms. If
anybody may claim to have known all sorts
and conditions of men and women, and to have
had friendly relations with people of opposite
caste, creed, and color, I may modestly make
that claim. My education was that given to
young girls in the 'fifties. It was in marked
contrast to the education young women are
receiving now, but I am inclined to think that,
as a practical preparation for life, it may bear
comparison with twentieth-century methods.
I began " From My Youth Up " with the
enjoyment of a child who steps into a play-
room. The dear days came back to me, and
the dear faces and voices. I hardly thought
of myself, except as of one small person around
whom moved father and mother, brother and
sister, teachers and schoolmates, friends and
comrades. Life was wholly beautiful and
wholly sweet. If any one wants a good time, I
advise her to write the story of her childhood.
Fortunately, few children have anything but
happiness to remember.
As I proceeded I began to see that I might
be helpful to my potential readers, and when
I reached the hour at which I seriously took
up literary pursuits I knew that my pages
would make a special appeal to the ever-
increasing number of people who desire to
try their fortunes in the writing field. I have
almost written myself out in confidential letters
to the girl who aspires to be famous, to the
wife who wants to earn money by her pen, and
to the man at the parting of the ways who is
sure that his stories surpass in merit the major-
ity of those which editors accept. Having
myself been both editor and contributor, it
occurred to me as I went on that such people
as these might gain useful information should
they read the straightforward story of what
I have been doing for rather more than thirty
years. From my youth up I have had more
joy than sorrow, more pleasure than pain, more
ease than hardship, and if my little book is
optimistic, it is because optimism has been
the dominant note of all my years.
To recapitulate briefly, I aimed in writing
"From My Youth Up" to tell the story of my
girlhood, my training, and environment, to
give some recollections of the Civil War and of
the Reconstruction period in the South, and
later to set forth in realistic fashion the story
of an active literary life, which continues with-
out interruption to the present time.
II. WHY I WROTE "A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST"
BY
MRS. GENE STRATTON-PORTER
I AM a creature so saturate with earth,
water, and air that if I do not periodically
work some of it out of my system in
ink, my nearest and dearest cannot live with
me. When such a time overtakes me, I write
as the birds sing, because I must, and usually
from the same source of inspiration. So my
first book was one stretch of river bank and
swamp that I knew, one bird, and one old
man with whom I was sufficiently intimate to
record his true picture. Then, like Grand-
father Squeers, I felt that I had " the hang of
it now and could do it ag'in." So I wrote
another book. I put in a little more swamp,
several birds, and a few people I knew I could
portray faithfully.
It was then the mail-box business began.
First, a wealthy club woman of a great city
wrote me that she had read one of my books
to a company of tired clerks, while they lunched
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12546
WHY I WROTE "A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST"
at their noon rest-hour, and it had brought to
them a few minutes of country so real that they
begged for more. A nurse wrote from a
hospital ward, for a man who always had lived
in and loved the open and now from spinal
trouble never would walk again, that my
pictures of swamp and forest were so true he
had lost himself for an hour in them, and would
I please send his address to my publishers, so
that he might be informed when I wrote again.
The warden of a state reform school wrote
that 1,500 sin-besmirched little souls in his
care, shut for punishment from their natural
inheritance of field and wood, were reading
my books to rags because they scented freedom
and found comfort in them, and would I send
him word when the next one was finished?
And the dignified and scholarly Orren Root,
sitting with his feet on the fender in the library
of his beloved "Hemlocks," read one of my
books one night, and the next day wrote me:
" I have a severe cold this morning, because
I got my feet very wet last night walking the
trail with 'Freckles,' but I am willing to risk
pneumonia any time for another book like
that."
I have such letters in heaps, from every
class and condition of people, all the way from
northern Canada to the lowest tip of Africa,
all asking for more of the outdoors, as I see
it, because my descriptions are absolutely real
to them, and my characters recognized as
transcriptions from life.
So I wrote "A Girl of the Limberlost,"
to carry to workers inside city walls, to hospital
cots, to those behind prison bars, and to
scholars in their libraries, my story of earth
and sky. Incidentally, I put in all the insects,
flowers, vines and trees, birds, and animals that
I know, and such human beings as I grow well
enough acquainted with in my work in the
woods, that I feel able to record a faithful
study of their loves, pains, joys, temptations,
and triumphs.
This reduces my formula for a book to
simplicity itself — an outdoor setting of land
in which I have lived until, as Mary Austin
expresses it, I know "the procession of the
year." Then I people such a location with
the men and women who live there, and on
my pages write down their story of joy and
sorrow commingled as living among them I
know it to be. This is the secret of any
appeal that my work may make. I am nothing
but a machine of transmission. If it be
truth that my work does not conform to the
ordinary standards of fiction-writing, it is
probably because very little of what I write is
fiction, and people know it.
I live in the country and work in the woods,
so no other location is possible for my back-
grounds, and only the people with whom I
come in daily contact there are suitable for
my actors. Naturally, there come times when
other locations and people are forced upon
me, but I decline to admit that I have a work-
ing knowledge of them. And I want to say
for such people as I put into books, that in the
plain, old-fashioned country homes where
I have lived, I have known such wealth of
loving consideration, such fidelity between
husband and wife, such obedience in children,
such constancy to purpose, such whole-souled
love for friends and neighbors, such absence of
jealousy, pettiness, and rivalry, as my city
critics do not know is in existence. I know
that they do not know these things exist, else
they would not question my chronicles of them.
But much can be forgiven a critic when he
attempts to criticise a life that he never lived,
and a love that he never knew.
I never could write a historical novel, because
I want my history embellished with anything
on earth save fiction. I could not write of
society, because I know just enough about it
to know that the more I know, the less I wish
that I knew. I have read a few "problem"
novels and they appeal to me as a wandering
over nasty, lawless subjects and situations of
the most ancient type, under new names.
There is nothing remaining for me but the
woods, and the people I meet there.
So for my boys behind bars, first of all, for
my working girls, for my scholars, and friends
of leisure, I "aimed" to conjure up part of
a swamp that I once knew, and set its flowers
blooming, its birds singing, its wonderful
creatures of night a-wing. And then I tried
to tell the simple story of a girl in calico and
cow-hide, who struggled until she reached the
things that she craved, even as I once struggled;
of a woman who suffered many deaths for
sins that she never committed, and found peace
at last; of a man who had everything in life,
yet kept himself clean, even as many men I
know to-day, because they are too refined and
proud to stoop to common, contaminating sin;
of a man and woman who might have been
anyone's Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wesley;
of a little child that I fed, and doctored, and
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THE WAY TO HEALTH
12547
quoted literally in nine-tenths of his sayings
and doings; and a couple of young people
who found the best in themselves through
suffering, as most of us suffer and find our
better selves sooner or later; and sunshine at
the end, as please God it shall come to all of
us who work and do the best we know.
My critics say that these methods never
can produce literature; yet it is in my memory
that the scenes of real masterpieces are lands
intimately known, and the characters are people
who are daily familiar with the authors. It is
my belief that no great book ever was written
any other way, and that no literature truly
characteristic of a nation is possible by any
other method. As to whether my work is or
ever will be literature, I never bother my
head. Time, the hearts of my readers, and
the files of my publishers will find me my ulti-
mate place. In the meantime, I shall have*
had the joy of my work, for to me it is joy
unspeakable to make a swimming-hole splash;
squirrels bark, and nuts rattle down inside
reform-school walls, or to set a bird singing;
leaves rustling, and a cricket chirping beside
hospital cots. As for my " aim," Cale Young
Rice recently put it into verse for me. He did
not know that he did it for me, but I did the
instant that I saw it :
"I ask no more
Than to restore
To simple, homely things their former joy."
THE WAY TO HEALTH
The average maris working efficiency might be increased fifty per cent. The development 0/
vitality is the keynote ofthe new world-wide movement for health. Its aim is to increase the power to
live and work, rather than merely to cure or even to prevent disease. As a part of this movement.
The World's Wore will publish from month to month the experiences of individuals in their
search for health and power.
Dr. Luther H. Gulick, author of "The Efficient Life" and of "Mind and Work," will select
important and typical experiences from correspondence coming to him and will suggest constructive
measures for more efficient living. Those desiring such suggestions should write fully to The
World's Work about their personal habits — hours of work, sleep, recreation, eating, clothing,
temperament, and health experiences. Particular attention will be paid to communications in regard
to children, and from those who feel that their power is beginning to wane through old age or from
overwork.
SHOULD DOCTORS TELL THE TRUTH?
BY
THE AUTHOR OF "HOW I GOT WELL"
IN MY boarding house in El Paso there
were more than a score of persons who
undoubtedly had tuberculosis in one
stage or another, yet the life which they led
was a studied effort to deny even a suspicion of
such a thing. Most of them had left home
because their doctor had told them that they
had "weak lungs." I recall one fine fellow
who was apparently strong and rugged, but
who was in fact "very far advanced." -He had
left the East in fairly good health, to "rough
it" in Arizona on the advice of his doctor. He
had "roughed it" for a year and the result
was, as he expressed it, that he had "shot
himself to pieces." He roundly cursed that
doctor for starting him on the road to certain
ruin. Later, I came to know that his expe-
rience was typical of thousands of persons who
come to the land-of-the-well country. Another
young fellow, who-came to the sanatorium in a
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12548
THE WAY TO HEALTH
happy, cheerful mood, explained to us that
his home doctor had told him that he had a
"slight touch" of bronchitis, and that a few
weeks in the Southwest would fix him up. But
when his examination came it was found that
he had tuberculosis of both lungs, as well as
that even more dreaded thing, tuberculosis
of the throat.
I could give many more examples, if there
were space, of the false hopes created, and the
failure on the part of doctors to make clear the
situation, for my own experience is full of just
such things. Arid in each case the cost is very
great — for when the patient has learned the
truth it is usually too late.
I have come to believe that doctors, as a class,
do not take their patients into their confidence;
they do not advise and instruct them as they
should. I do not wish to criticize the methods
of physicians, except in so far as they enshroud
their treatment and advice in mystery, and in
so far as they fail sufficiently to explain matters
to their patients.
The patient himself is not by any means
entirely free from blame, for it is undoubt-
edly true that the average patient does not
show a desire to know and to understand; and
it is quite true, as the doctors insist, that many
do not have the capacity to understand these
matters even if they were explained. Still I
cannot help but feel that I should have under-
stood something at least, in those early days
when I was trying so hard to know, and no
doctor would tell me. And I am quite sure
that the average patient would understand and
profit very much if given the opportunity.
The doctor should be more helpful by way of
intimate advice, more confidential; and the
patient should be more willing to learn.
The trouble lies largely in the patient's
overestimating the doctor's power, and in the
doctor's willingness to have it so; and if either
is to be more severely condemned it is the
doctor, for he knows, while the patient does
not. In the factors which will ultimately
decide whether a patient is to get well or not,
his own recuperative capacity may constitute
nine points, while the doctor and the medicine
that he gives constitute the other part. But
the average patient is still inclined to reverse
the proportions and to trust himself blindly to
hi9 doctor, firm in the belief that the " medi-
cine" will in some mysterious way work his
cure. And the average doctor rather aids in
the delusion than otherwise.
It seems to me there rests a heavy duty on
the medical profession in the matter, and
perhaps it is not presumptuous for a layman
to say that it is his conviction that the duty is
not carried out as it should be. I have seen
and felt in my own experience in the South-
west the sad results which follow the improper
advice of home doctors, and of some of these
things I have already spoken. But I know
also the situation from the standpoint of the
people who never "go West," but who remain
in their own homes to chase the cure. It is
not very long ago that I was living in a "back-
home" country, and I well remember the con-
dition of "consumptives," as we called them.
The misery and helplessness of it all were so
vivid in my mind that I resolved, when I
learned of my own affliction, never to go back
home until I was a well man.
I know how the "back-home" consumptives
were treated then, and I am sure that they are
still being treated in the same way in a hundred
thousand cases. The doctor called twice a
week: or, as the last stages of the disease
approached, every day. He prescribed some
"stomach bitters" or cough syrup, and though
he knew in his heart he could do nothing to
relieve or help, yet he had not the courage
or the integrity to say so. The patient would
grow weaker and weaker until the despairing
family would send for another physician,
recommended perhaps by a visiting relative,
in the hope that he might do some little good.
The new doctor could do nothing more than
his predecessor, and so the vicious circle would
go on until the patient died — for they always
did die — and the family was left with its
burden of woe and a mortgage on the farm to
pay the doctors' bills.
The pitfalls and difficulties which beset
such a patient are legion. He is after quick
results and has, like the rest of mankind,
great faith in the taking of medicines. He is
willing to "dope" himself with barrels of some-
body's "Consumption Cure," or "Catarrh
Cure"; he will smoke mullen-leaves by the
hour and consume all sorts of syrups and
drugs; he will suck for months at various
sorts of "inhalers" — for all of these are
"cures" which I, myself, have seen tried.
But the reason that he does this is because
some doctor has advised him to do it —
or, if not, then because he has not been
advised not to do it; and the result is the
same in the end.
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THE WAY TO HEALTH
"549
The moral of all this is — that those doctors
who know should enlighten and instruct their
patients; and those who do not know should
admit the fact, for the love that they bear their
fellow-men.
My own experience with doctors will prob-
ably illustrate better than I can express in any
other way the points I have been trying to
make, for it includes consultation with several
of the best specialists in New York and Phila-
delphia, as well as a considerable acquaintance,
both personal and professional, with the doctors
of El Paso, Silver City, and Denver.
After I had learned positively, by means of
the microscope, that I had tuberculosis, my
home doctor advised consultation with some
of the famous men in and about New York. I
was anxious to learn as much as possible of my
condition, and I did as he advised. The first
two visits were unsatisfactory in the results,
so far as I was concerned, so I went to several
others. I wanted to know something of the
disease and how it could be cured — but that
is just what they did not tell me.
The first doctor proceeded to strip me and
examine and diagnose my case in a way which
then seemed strange and mystifying, but which
afterward became familiar by repetition. He
sounded my ribs with his knuckles and listened
to my breathing with his ear pressed against
my chest and back. For fifteen minutes or
more he examined and tested me with every
device and appliance known to the profession,
but during the whole time he did not speak to
me except to ask suggestive questions as to my
age, my family history, my previous habits,
occupations, etc. At the end of the examina-
tion he dictated a short note, which he sealed
and gave to me for my doctor. To me per-
sonally he said nothing — except to tell me the
amount of his fee. I afterward saw the note.
It contained his thanks for being permitted to
examine the case; as for the patient, "he
undoubtedly had tuberculosis, and he advised
Arizona or Colorado."
The other doctors were more communicative,
but they did not tell me anything of what I
really wanted to know. They assured me
that I had the disease, but each located it in a
different part of my lungs, some of them differ-
ing even as to the lung involved — but they
did not explain to me the nature of the disease,
nor the principles according to which it must
be cured. I became dissatisfied and dis-
couraged after I had visited four doctors and
they had all treated me as a specimen to be
examined rather than as a person in search of
information and help.
I gave up the search, in no way better quali-
fied to begin the actual hunt for health than I
had been in the beginning. I went to El Paso,
and after a time I went to one of the best-
known doctors there. The result was the
same as before, and I finally gave up, as many
persons do — believing that the doctors were
doing me no good.
The methods of the doctor at the sanatorium
where I was cured were directly contrary to
what I had known before. At the first exami-
nation he marked out with a lead pencil on my
chest the locality involved, explained fully the
nature and condition of my case, told me what
I might expect in the way of cure, how long
it would probably take, and finally outlined
minutely the routine that I should follow every
day. Of course, living at the sanatorium gave
greater opportunity for observation by the
doctor and for consultation with him,' but it
is with the attitude I am concerned and not
with the opportunity.
The doctor was continually explaining the
characteristics of the disease and its proper
treatment, and in a short space of time the
patients became -"near-doctors" themselves.
We learned the anatomy of the lungs, the
methods of contracting the disease, the way
in which it attacks the body, the results of an
autopsy at various stages of the disease, the
character of the tubercle bacillus. We were
even allowed to examine it under the micros-
cope; we learned the recuperative agencies
of the body, how it sets about working its own
cure, the theory of toxins, the liability of
relapse, the danger of "reactions," the signs
of approaching cure, the importance of tem-
perature, the futility of medicines — these and
a thousand other similar matters.
The doctor took us completely into his con-
fidence and never did anything without making
clear to us what he was doing, what he expected
the result to be, and why he expected it. And
he had an appreciative audience, for every per-
son realized that his Salvation might depend on
his own better understanding of these matters.
In short, we learned from our doctor that we
must work our own cure and that he could
only help in incidental matters. And we
respected and admired him the more, and knew
that he was the greater doctor for his banish-
ment of mystery.
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THE TROUBLE WITH THE TEACHER
[Note. — "The Confessions 0} a Successful Teacher" in the November World's Work,
catted forth much comment and scores 0} manuscripts jrom teachers who insisted that the profession
had been misrepresented. Most of the manuscripts really proved the contention of the article that
they criticized ; we publish here the article which seemed most fairly to represent the protestanls,
because it is almost the only one that had the quality of enthusiasm and inspiration. It is followed
by Mr. Mc Andrew9 s statement of the case from the standpoint of a man {the other articles having
been written by women teachers) and of a school principal. — The Editors.]
THE PROTEST OF A CONTENTED TEACHER
BY
ONE WHO LOVES HER WORK
TEACHERS take their temperaments
and their qualities into their profession;
they do not find them there. The
teacher who from the start hates his task is a
misfit. There is no excuse for remaining at it
when so many avenues of escape are open.
This is true to-day of women as well as of men.
It was not true fifty years ago, when "not to
be at all, or else to be a teacher, was the alter-
native presented to aspiring young women of
intellectual proclivities.' '
For myself (since the intimate narrative of
personal experience is desired), had a thousand
callings been open to me, I should have gravi-
tated unerringly to teaching. It claimed me
early. At eighteen I interrupted my college
course to try my ' 'prentice hand' on an
ungraded country school. On graduating, I
sought and found a position in the Latin-prepar-
atory department of a high school in a New
England city. There I made myself useful
and was rapidly advanced. After four years
of service, I applied for the principalship of a
public school in a great Western city, passed
the tests, and became the only woman master
at that time in the county. To-day, half the
masters in that city are women, with salaries
the same as the men's. 'Later I engaged in
private school work, and became associate
principal of a large school for girls. I have
since had my own school and made my con-
ditions.
I may add that I have had offers from nor-
mal schools and colleges; also opportunities
to write editorially on educational subjects
for a great daily newspaper, and have thus
kept up with the march of events. I have
attended many institutes, my maiden speech
having been made to one of men only. I could
amplify this portion of my confidence, but I
wish only to make clear the fact that I have
not been shut up to teaching as a necessity,
accepted it as a grinding lot, or had a narrow
range of activity. In the interests of truth let
me add that Coelebs in search of a wife has
not passed me by; nor have I observed that
teachers as a class are immune from tempta-
tion to matrimony.
I have had scores of teachers under me whose
calibre and temper I have had to gauge, and
seldom have I found one who hated her work;
never one who was ashamed of her vocation.
I have known many teachers, especially in the
West, men and women of size (measured not
alone by their hat-bands), who are capable
of bettering themselves financially, yet have
stuck to their work because they love it. They
are an honor to their profession.
Such teachers are the true measure of their
calling, as "the highest is the measure of the
man." What could have induced Emma Wil-
lard, or Mary Lyon, or Arnold of Rugby, or
Edward Rowland Sill, or William T. Harris,
or Julia Richman, or Ella F. Young to leave
the post of teacher for a more lucrative or con-
spicuous one? Ashamed of a profession
adorned by such names — a roll headed by
the Great Teacher ?
This is doubtless buncombe to the teacher
who confessedly "hates her work." Perhaps
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THE TROUBLE WITH THE TEACHER
12551
she has missed some reasons for loving it. For
instance —
Companionship with the aspiring and the
industrious builders of a nation and a race
may have been denied her. From the pursuit
of wealth these toilers are debarred. Except
in the private school managed as a business
enterprise, there is no lure of gold. What
unjaundiced eye could look into the faces
of such a representative body of teachers as
the National Educational Association, without
the estimate: "Attitude high, ideals noble,
cause just"? Earnest purpose and unselfish
motive actuate the majority and carry their
own reward. Moral qualities are self-perpetu-
ating. Like produces like — teacher in pupil.
To direct the life energy of a child, to trans-
form its character, to shape its growth, is no
unrewarding task.
The supreme reason, then, for loving one's
work is the kind of investment it offers in human
lives — an investment that bears interest in
human values, precious and priceless. Let me
illustrate this with extracts from letters written
me by my pupils:
"When I first got into your classes I didn't try
to do anything; so high were your standards, they
seemed impossible to me, until I found that you
were interested in me; then I tried to make the best
of myself for your sake. I read books and did
things continually that I cared nothing for, with-
out expecting to care, or to be that sort of girl. How
great was my surprise to find after a while that all
unconsciously, by contact with the best things and
influenced by you, I was that kind of girl; and
never through the whole course of my life could I
be satisfied with anything lower than your stan-
dards, which were the highest. You were very
patient with me, but would never stop for laggards,
and I tugged on after you, breathless, but not
daring to pause, lest I lose you by the way. . . .
You compelled us to think for ourselves, aroused
our consciences, and made us feel spiritual values.
All your work was infused with spiritual quality."
Another pupil, who is now dean of a college,
writes:
" Even after twenty years, I cannot write coolly
of your teaching, because it was the most powerful
factor in my life. Absolute integrity in work and
one's very best were what you expected, and every
girl felt a great moral demand upon her to trans-
cend her old ideals. Yet we never felt driven to
work, but rather, self-impelled."
Another noble woman, whose mother told
me that I had formed the character of her girls,
wrote me thus:
"You know you are as firmly homed in my
heart as the memories and all that is sacred in the
past. In fact, you are the living spirit of my past.
To talk to you is to speak with my heart, over-
flowing with memories of my girlhood. . . .
The present I know not how to tell you of. The
days are crowded with work, yet full of happiness
and peace, and I believe always marked by prog-
ress upward." •
From a beautiful but self-willed girl, who had
required "heroic encouragement" to scholarly
habits, and who had one day slipped into my
hand this line: "The noblest part of a friend
is an honest boldness in the notifying of errors,"
there came to me after her death this verse,
penciled on a bit of slate:
"This wandering brook that winds upon its way
In shade and sunshine on this August day,
Sings to my heart a tender song of thee.
The murmuring music holds an undertone of pain;
There is a tinge of sadness in the soft refrain;
Yet e'en the pain that creepeth now to me
From this brook-music cries: 'She still loves
thee.'"
I have culled these extracts in a sincere
endeavor to indicate the blessings that crown
a teacher's career. There were others "in
disguise." Very early my tendency to sarcasm
drew a rebuke from a brave girl, who left on
my desk this couplet:
"Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen."
I swallowed and digested this bitter pill, but
the remedial process was a slower one. I must
have "hacked and hewed" that day in the
Virgil class when I said to a bright but indolent
boy: "Frank, I'd like to explode a torpedo
under you." Ten years later, Frank, in the
dignity of an Episcopal surplice, told me that
my brusque remark had made an epoch in his
life, arousing his dormant energy. I had for-
gotten it. Indeed, so far as I have traced the
effect of my work, it has been the chance word,
the unstudied act, the unconscious ideal, that
have been most effective for good or ill.
Who shall write the Epic of the Schoolroom ?
My four years in the high school were a fraction
of an Iliad, as to my inner life. At their close,
I told my favorite class my decision not to
return. To my surprise, not a word was
spoken; but, as if a cloud had darkened the
sky, the air became showery with tears. I
kept a brave face until a fine boy of sixteen,
ruddy and wholesome as an apple, taking his
turn at "good-bye," "up and kissed me on the
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"55*
THE TROUBLE WITH THE TEACHER
lips." Then I, too, laughed and cried. That
dear class gave me a surprise party, and looked
their prettiest in a jjroup picture framed for my
wall; but so big that, like the Vicar's family
portrait, the house would not contain it.
As to the joys and rewards of my country
school, how they shine, as looking backward
I see the frozen pond and the snowy road, the
chestnut woods and the maple grove, and recall
the fragrant excursions with my country lads
and lasses! This outdoor comradeship ren-
dered discipline in the schoolroom a negligible
quantity, while the reading circle about the
evening lamp aroused mentality.
And that bite noire of the unhappy teacher
— the Principal or the School Board? There
are all kinds. Again I draw upon a varied
experience. My first master let me severely
alone until he found that I could do without
him. He had met me with this challenge: "The
less I hear about the discipline of this room, the
better." Every atom of my will leaped to con-
quer, and I did not fail. The .same master
touched the quick of my pride by asking me
dryly if I was taught thus and so (referring to
minor faults) by my alma mater. He left no
hiding-places for my weakness, and for that and
more I bless his memory. Another principal
rarely blamed, but never praised, and not until
he invited me back to the highest position in the
school did I learn his estimate of my work.
Another, in my volatile days, lifted me to the
seventh heaven by saying that my girls in
Latin recited as well as the boys at Exeter!
I have had masters, I have been a master;
and I have had the friendship both of superiors
and subordinates. I challenge any one to show
a nobler list, or a stronger "tie that binds."
How could a true woman fail to honor a call-
ing that gives to the deep mother-heart of the
childless a blessed outlet, and satisfies her
affectional nature with .the enduring love of
children? Any laurel that I might have won
in any other calling fades before this, conferred
by a brilliant but wayward pupil, grown to
manhood:
"She is the only person who ever made me
wish that I were a woman."
WHAT IS THE TROUBLE WITH THE SCHOOL-TEACHER?
BY
WILLIAM McANDREW
(PRINCIPAL, TBS WASHINGTON XSVINO HIGH SCHOOL, NEW YORK CITY)
SOMEBODY wrote for the November
World's Work a startlingly frank
confession, saying that a teacher is
a nobody, condemned to uninteresting labor,
hating her occupation, and despising her
associates. The educational magazines are
publishing letters of school people protesting
against it. Some say the statements are false;
some, that they are true; others, that whether
so or not they should not be published. But
Winship, the editor of The Journal of Educa-
tion, regrets that " as things are now, the teacher
is liable to a large extent to be a mere machine."
Carolyn Shipman, in The Educational Review,
defending teachers, deplores the fact that
" more than half of them do not like their work,
while many of them hate it." Bardeen,
editor of The School Bulletin, publishes a
book on "Teaching as a Business" which
The Sun calls "the saddest, truest thing about
us ever crystallized into print" Lang, of The
School Journal, offers in every issue a "cheer*
up" department for teachers, and so on. No
defender of things as they are seems to be able
to establish a permanent belief that the teacher's
lot is a happy one. I think that I have con-
tracted every kind of teacher's unhappiness there
is and cured myself; I think that I shall have
many of these attacks again and survive. May
I qualify as an unhappiness expert and testify?
A large number of teachers are low-spirited
and hate the job.
What difference does it make ? This: Every
community is putting more money into educa-
tion than into any other public work. If any
teachers are downhearted, the schools are
like boilers with rusted flues; it is impossible
to keep up enough steam. The children are
placed five hours a day in association with
women selected as examples in disposition,
conduct, and intelligence. If any of these
women are unhappy and therefore unattractive,
unsympathetic, uninteresting, and repellent,
it is a matter of the gravest public concern.
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THE TROUBLE WITH THE TEACHER
12553
It is as if physicians in a hospital were afflicted
with contagious diseases.
Who is to blame? The public, the heads
of school systems, and we teachers ourselves.
WHERE THE PUBLIC GETS THE BEST SCHOOLS
The public might treat the teachers better.
It tells them in ceremonial addresses that they
are performing the highest kind of work on
earth — and it tells them on the payrolls that
they are doing the cheapest public service
known. It ridicules them in literature, on the
stage, and in the newspapers. Every cartoon
picturing a schoolma'am shows her to be "a
fright." The town is cheating itself out of a
good part of its school taxes by failing to take
off its hat to the girl behind the desk. The
happiness of a teacher is like the sweetness of
the water supply. There is no other public
servant whose state of mind matters very much.
THE HEAD MAN'S OPPORTUNITY
How the heads of school systems paralyze
education by perpetuating the unhappiness of
teachers I can demonstrate, for I have employed
all the pompous nonsense of school adminis-
tration as principal and superintendent myself,
and have observed some of the less self-
important men in high places helping to make
teaching seem enjoyable. The superintendent's
greatest difficulty in the way of creating happi-
ness of service seems to be himself. He is a
new thing yet, invented scarcely fifty years ago,
and has not discovered that there is anything
the matter with him. He has patterned him-
self upon the man of affairs, the captain of in-
dustry, the manager of great business concerns.
This perfection of the machine, I think, has
impaired education. The head man loses the
human side. The question of how it feels to
be a public school-teacher receiving directions
and corrections does not find room in the
director's brain. Individuals can not count
much with him: he thinks in masses. He is
no shirk. He spares neither himself nor others,
but the more he gives of himself to this kind of
service, the less of gratitude and more of criti-
cism he gets from the public, the press, and his
own paid people. The trouble seems not lack
of brains, but lack of heart.
THE TEACHER'S DUTY TO BE CHEERFUL
The next accessible agent for the recovery
of joy is my lady herself. It is not quite honest
to draw pay for service and to go into a room
full of children when you hate the work of
helping them. A sour-faced teacher has no
right to impose herself on children who are
prevented by law from escaping.
Some forget that happiness does not come of
itself, like the gas man with his bill. A teacher
must go and get it. It is wicked to spend so
much time and energy putting red marks on
answer papers if one has no leisure left for fun.
Paper-teaching has had its day; now we have
learned that the fresh and recreated teacher
who marks fewer papers, does more work in
the six hours than the ten-hour drudge who has
no magnetism in her. There is a peculiar
kind of busy laziness that the teacher has.
It consists in over-tiring herself with abun-
dance of detail work which serves as an excuse
for not performing her higher duty of realizing
herself. She neglects the pursuit of happiness
on an improved plea that she has no time for it
My lady needs society. Let her seek it
Every community large enough to afford a
school has more variety in social life than any
teacher can exhaust. If she is pretty, or can
make herself so, she is sure of more welcomes
than she can use. If she fails on this road
there are manners — "woman's specialty.''
She can make herself wanted almost anywhere
unless she starts by despising the people who
are ready at hand to amuse, entertain, and
benefit her. Every teacher has a calling list of
forty families ready made for her.
THE TEACHER'S NEGLECT OF MARRIAGE
A common cause of the school-woman's
unhappiness comes of her neglect to get on the
path to matrimony. When ninety-nine one-
hundredths of literature place the experience
of love, marriage, and rearing of children in
the highest ranks of human happiness, is a
teacher not herself to blame if she neglects
the ordinary provisions for adding these good
things to her list? It is a subject of common
remark how many teachers have missed the
boat, but when you come to investigate you
find they did not even take the trouble to go
down to the dock. Husbands, homes, and
households, like other happinesses, must be
prospected for. Balls and dances notably
increase marriages, so the sociologists demon-
strate. They also record that men in search
of mates do not visit school-rooms.
If a teacher can bring herself to say, "I
will enjoy my life," she has more than average
opportunity for happiness even under our
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"554
THE TROUBLE WITH THE TEACHER
absurd system. We make our mistake in
quarrelling with our place because we do not
'find in it some rewards that we have always
known are not to be found in it. There is no
^money in it, we all know that; no prominence,
or fame, or power of command. There is a
lack of many other things that men and women
Tun after. But we always knew that. Yet
there is clothing, food and lodging, certainty
of employment somewhere, accessibility to
books, the largest amount of free time in any
employment, and there is service to the com-
monwealth,
, One has to estimate the value of one's life
as it will appear from the latter end of it. When
it comes to epitaphs we claim first choice.
Nobody who can look back as a teacher upon
a succession of acts which were helping others
ahead can call it an unhappy career. Its
material prevents teaching from ever losing
interest It would be hard to find a man or
woman who didn't have an instinctive love
of children. Instead of dying out, this pleas-
ure grows stronger as we grow older. If I
should feel a fit of unhappiness coming over me
I should go into a class-room full of children
and watch them and talk with them. It
freshens the nerves, and rejuvenates the spirits
as a landscape does or a play or a piece of
music. I have had these periods of hating my
job and of despising teachers and all that —
but it was long ago, before I worked for a rail-
road, or a newspaper, or a book-house or a real-
estate firm, and before I knew by experience
how much more interesting and honest and
decent teaching really is. Whenever I have
•these relapses, now, it is only the reflection
transmitted by some one who is belittling my
occupation because it has not paid some sort
of dividends that were never specified in the
bond. Each one must tend his own fire. If
the public does not furnish a good draught,
that is a pity; if a superintendent feeds many
clinkers in, that is a misfortune; but while there
is still so much good fuel lying ready to my
hand I am a simpleton to cry that I am cold.
THE TEACHER IS NOT A HIRED GIRL
"It is not teaching that is hateful," says
your writer of that pathetic November article,
" it is the conditions." " It isn't the children,"
writes the woman in The Atlantic, "it is the
system and its heads." "In a rut," is the
phrase used more frequently of a teacher than
t>f any other person. An eminent editor, a
graduate from the class-room platform, declares
that to teach long in the public schools is to
commit intellectual suicide.
Somehow, we must get systems that will
prevent waste of energy and secure concen-
tration of effort without reducing teachers to
factory machines. Somehow, we must get
intellectual exercise and enjoyment to teachers
themselves. The recipe for it seems to consist
in greater freedom. If one desires an atmos-
phere like that he must depart from the
filing cases in an office and discover what
happiness in teaching is.
I cannot keep my spirits up very well if
directions are too many and too minute and all
transmitted through the mail. I cannot expect
a woman to work like a volunteer if I suggest
that she do not dance, play cards, go skating,
or wear her hair in the fashion of the hour.
Yet these are matters teachers are lectured
about all over the country. Because she is a
public servant, she need not be directed like
a hired girl. It is time for less universal cor-
rection. The groan is heard as much in
education as the laugh.
It is time to try less of the negative, more of
the effect of encouragement. There is much
talent and power lying dormant in teachers,
awaiting the invitation of the kind of educator
who can coax it forth, who will recognize that
the vital point of public education is not in his
office, but where teacher and children meet.
We have been afraid of sentimentalism; we
have desired to be called business organizers.
Nonsense! Education is the opposite of busi-
ness; it is founded on the emotions. Its
purpose is the increase of happiness. Every
great educational reform known to the history
of teaching was an emotional movement.
Another one will be due pretty soon: the
recognition of the necessity of keeping a teacher
radiantly happy, longing when absent to get
back to school, loving her children, conscious
that her efforts are appreciated by at least
the persons hired for the purpose.
The one force that can most quickly increase
the number of teachers in good spirits is the
superintendent. His position permits him to
radiate encouragement, good will, confidence,
acknowledgment, and inspiration to the limits
of the system. This is not business, nor
organization, nor executive ability, so-called, all
of which have their great value. It is the one
thing most needful to get from the head of a
teaching corporation.
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THE CONFESSIONS OF AN INSPECTOR
OF PUBLIC WORKS
BY
BENJAMIN BROOKS
THERE are three kinds of inspectors —
all despicable. The worst is the col-
lege youth, freshly graduated, with a
host of good ideas and no experience in the
use of them. He has to get his practical educa-
tion at the expense of the contractor whom he
inspects and of the municipality that hires
him, and he is likely to cost them both very
dearly. The next most objectionable inspector
is the old, worked-out engineer who seeks an
easy job on small pay to finish off with. He
has many advantages, but being a man who
has little in prospect, he is not always strictly
honest. The least objectionable of all is the
active practicing engineer, who is temporarily
out of a job and seeks the position as a
"pot-boiler."
It was in this last category that my contrac-
tor placed me after a few days' acquaintance.
I started on my " pot-boiler" job so propitiously
that I had not the least suspicion that it would
degrade me from the rank of a normal human
being; and I was thrown the more off my guard
by the fact that my appointment had been made
"subject to the approval of the Civil Service
Commission," and that the chief engineer had
started me off with the admonition that the
specifications were to be followed without fear
or favor. Surely nothing could be more satis-
factory than that.
But it should be more fully explained what
an inspector is. First, and most important, he
is the representative of the city for whom
the work is being done. His all-important
duty is to be everlastingly there with his eyes
about him. If the work requires concrete of
certain proportions, he must watch every mix-
ture to see that the proper materials go in;
and in the absence of any other measures, he
must have a very keen judgment as to what is
in a wheelbarrow as it goes by him on the run.
If the work calls for steel or cement of certain
breaking strength, he must understand the
exact methods and machinery for testing them.
In addition, he has to keep continual account
of the cost of everything — the amount of
material in place, the number of "man-
days" to place it, the fuel used by the pumps
and engines on the works, the rebate on the
cement bags, the kilowatts of electricity and
gallons of water indicated on the meters. He
must report progress and delays, and judge
if the contractors' plant is adequate to finish
the work on time. At all times his notes
must be as clear as print, for any day they
may be taken into court.
Why need one be a diplomat in order to
interpret the specifications and steer by them?
In the first place, the English language is so
delightfully pliable that it often takes a group
of lawyers all the forenoon to spike a single
statement down straight and tight so that
another group during the lunch hour cannot
twist it into a thing of entirely different import
But that is not all. Time was when the con-
tractor guessed about what the work would cost
if properly done; guessed how much he could,
leave undone, and still collect; guessed at how
many politicians he would have to "see"; how
many of their incompetent favorites he would
have to employ; and then wrote„his bid. It
was an easy matter to hoodwink city or state
engineers, for cities and states have hardly ever
paid salaries that would attract the best men.
It was easy enough to lay empty cement barrels
here and there in outlying districts in lieu of
more expensive sewer-pipes. It was easy to
buy the inspector one good meal and save fifty
sacks of cement while he was enjoying it. But
those unfortunate and happy days are about
over now. Contractors of the old school who
collected their payments with bribes and paid
their men with a pick-handle have gone to
the wall. A more scientific set estimates costs
instead of dining supervisors. The one aim
of public specifications to-day seems to be to
weight the contractor with all the risks, to sew
him up tightly in a bag of strict stipulations
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12556 THE CONFESSIONS OF AN INSPECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS
and launch him forth. The present-day speci-
fication for public work is about as lop-sided as
a contract with a pawn-broker, and about as
rigidly unadaptable to its purpose as a pair
of cut-glass suspenders.
These same specifications that I carried un-
suspectingly in my pocket were no exception.
The work that they covered was a system
of large concrete sewers. The very first day
brought its disagreement. Cement was "to
be stored in a convenient place for testing,
thirty days previous to use." The city engin-
eers held, and so instructed me, that a "con-
venient place" necessarily meant in a shed on
the site of operation. The contractor held
that three blocks away in a cement dealer's
warehouse was also convenient, especially as
the rainy weather made a shed rather too
damp for safety. But it took me a week to
get him permission to do what I considered
best for all parties concerned.
The next difficulty arose over pile-driving.
Instead of stipulating where piles should be
driven and where they should not — which
could have been done had the city authorities
previously acquainted themselves with the soil
conditions by boring test-holes — the speci-
fications instructed the contractor to drive
piles where directed by the city engineer. Was
he to distribute the cost of erecting and dis-
mantling his driver over ten piles, or a hundred,
or a thousand? He must have guessed, and
guessed on the safe side. But, having decided
when he had driven enough and having allowed
him to dismantle and ship his driver, the city
engineers decided to have more piles driven
and required him to rebuild his driver. Under
the specifications he had no legal right to the
extra $200 that it would cost him. From this
point he became very hard to deal with. As
the transmitter of these unjust directions, he
could not regard me without irritation.
The climax came late one Saturday afternoon
when, with all warehouses closed, all team-
sters gone home, and but one hour of daylight
left, the contractor ran short of cement just
before the completion of his work. To leave
his work uncompleted, with the reinforcement
half exposed, would have been ruinous to it.
In his emergency he thought of another con-
tractor in the neighborhood who was doing
similar work for the same city under identi-
cal requirements for cement. In no time at
all half-a-dozen men with wheelbarrows had
brought a dozen sacks of cement.
But I felt obliged to protest against its use.
Where had it come from ? Had it been tested ?
Was it equal to that which we had used?
He recognized my position, and hastened to
explain that he would give me a written state-
ment that I was in no way responsible for its
use; that he was to use it without my permission;
but that if I would see that the proper quantity
was put in, he would take it upon himself to
prove by the city inspectors on the other job
that it was in every way certified, tested cement.
Failing in this, he would destroy and reconstruct
the work done with these dozen bags.
Nothing could seem more reasonable to me
— but I was a mere novice. My associate and
next superior on the work (for in mixing con-
crete two inspectors are often needed — one
to supervise the mixture and one to watch its
placement) was absolutely firm in his denial.
The contractor must stop work. But since
the half-completed work would be ruined in
that case, he refused to stop. In high dudgeon,
then, my impressive superior walked off the
job, bidding me follow. The following week,
despite all arguments, protests, and proofs, the
work was ordered removed. In giving this
order to destroy perfectly good work, I felt
as though I were wantonly ordering the burn-
ing of a fine tree or the killing of a good dog.
The order was obeyed, but the contractor was
never my friend after that. And even had
he been, the sight of excellent concrete des-
troyed at my order, for no other reason that I
could see than to soothe the injured dignity of
my brother inspector, caused me to lose much
self-respect. Here, then, was the end of the
fine resolves I had started with. And the
specifications had done it.
At this juncture I was transferred to another
contract — the construction of small, water-
tight, concrete reservoirs. The contractor
greeted me cordially, seemingly not aware
of my pernicious character. The work, con-
sisting mostly of digging a hole in the ground,
was simple enough, and went smoothly. The
contractor — or rather his superintendent —
became more cordial, even hospitable; so much
so that I began to feel embarrassed.
I had not long to enjoy this tranquillity, how-
ever. The specifications stated that concrete
was to be composed of five parts broken stone
to one part of cement, with enough sand to
fill the voids or spaces between the stones. The
rock was to be from two inches to three-eighths
of an inch in size, but no bigger and no smaller.
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THE CONFESSIONS OF AN INSPECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS 12557
Just how much sand to put in I carefully deter-
mined by measuring and mixing beforehand.
I was, without doubt, theoretically correct, but
the first batch of concrete that was turned
out, instead of having the good oat-meal mush
consistency which is so desirable, looked like
a mess of chopped potatoes in very thin gravy.
The superintendent at once protested that it
would never make a water-tight reservoir, and
that unless it were water-tight the firm would
never be paid for it. I also saw that the chances
of water-tightness were slim; but also that if
I added enough extra sand to make it mushy
it would be at the expense of the cement —
and the specifications. What it required was
some fine gravel' to fill the rock voids. We
both understood this, admitted it, agreed
on it; but none such was permitted by the
specifications. Here was truly a dilemma:
specifications that insisted on a water-tight
reservoir and yet which would never secure
one if strictly followed.
The superintendent observed my quan-
dary. "Why, man!" he exclaimed, "it's the
results we're after, isn't it?" "No," I replied
ironically, "you must have observed in execu-
ting public works that the specifications are
the main thing — not the results." "But
look here," he persisted earnesdy, too much
absorbed to notice my fine sarcasm, "you must
be reasonable about this. If you are repri-
manded for disobeying orders, isn't it better
than a lot of newspaper notoriety for being the
inspector on a leaky reservoir? Do you fancy
your chief would take the blame off your
shoulders?"
This was the last straw. "Put in your
fine stuff!" I exclaimed, shoving the despised
specifications under a bucket. He was off to
the telephone in a trice, and before the work
had progressed much farther, we were adding
the fine gravel.
Of course, there was a stormy time when it
was discovered that I had allowed this contra-
band material to enter the construction, but
throughout the storm I had the satisfaction of
knowing that my reservoir did not leak, whereas
some others, supervised by my unfortunate
associates, leaked like lobster pots.
About this time I was notified to accept a day
off and take a civil service examination for the
position which I already held on probation.
The custom appeared to be to hire assistants as
the chief engineer needed them, instead of wait-
ing for the cumbersome civil service machinery
to move around, but to examine them from time
to time when convenient, as a sort of check on
their ability and standing. The thought was
very disconcerting to me. In common with
most engineers who have been more than ten
years out of college, I possessed the idea that
I could not pass a civil service examination,
and there are good reasons for this feeling, for
there is a wide and unbridgeable difference
between doing things on paper and doing them
in actual fact, and a civil service examination
must be largely on paper.
With these adverse conditions on my mind,
I set to work to prepare for the worst. I
rehearsed the entire elements of the geometry
of triangles, solids, spheres. Placing my tran-
sit carefully out of sight, I wrote lengthy
instructions to myself how to adjust it. It
seemed logical, also, that all questions and
"quizzes" relating to city structures could be
answered by learning by heart the essential
points and figures of a complete list of city
specifications. Accordingly I impressed var-
ious members of my family into the service of
hearing me recite my lesson each evening until
I had it crammed into my head.
Thus fortified, I approached the civil ser-
vice examiner. There were eighty applicants,
and sixty of them were on hand — old in-
spectors and young, college students, ambi-
tious mechanics, and financially "busted"
engineers like myself. Confronted by such
an amount of competition, my enthusiasm
cooled down very suddenly; but this chill gave
place to copious perspiration the moment the
examination questions were opened. As I after-
ward learned, this was considered a rather
stiff examination but very practical and free
from catch questions. It was copied in the
best engineering papers, and other cities asked
permission to use it. At the moment, however,
my only observation was that there was a
tremendous lot of it to do in the specified time.
An engineer always takes time to be sure that
his computations are correct, but here there was
no time to check back. In all other respects it
was for me merely a matter of memory; and I
went back to my work with the feeling that I
might not have done very badly, after all.
Strange though it might appear, it took three
months to learn the results of the examinations,
and in the meantime several things occurred.
On one occasion my hospitable superintendent
fell sick. Being quite capable of handling his
work as it stood, and wishing to expedite mat-
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ters for all parties, I went on with the job; for
an interval I was both inspector for the city and
superintendent for the contractor — but I took
very good care to draw pay from only one side.
My delicacy in this matter troubled the con-
tractor not a little. I was worth about $10 a
day to him, but he could not compensate me
for it. An occasional loan of a saddle-horse, a
small theatre-party — there could be no harm
in that, but money was out of the question, for
one cannot serve two interests at once. I came
near overstepping the mark one day when I
found it necessary to purchase some small
supplies for him.
"Well, here," he said, passing over a few
crisp twenties, "I cannot keep track of all
these little items; take this and buy what you
need from time to time."
His motive was without doubt perfectly
square, but on the point of taking the expense
money I held a conversation with myself.
" Suppose that I have no immediate occasion
to spend this amount for him? Suppose that
his superintendent returns to-morrow. He
may make various excuses for not taking the
money back — 'Oh, forget it!' or 'You've
earned it on the job"; or, 'You'll need it in the
future.' In that case I should make a beautiful
mess explaining how I came by it if any enter-
prising, public-spirited newspaper man should
learn of the transaction."
"No," I said; "I'd rather handle a hot stove
than your money just now. Give it to your
straw boss."
"Well, all right, old man," he agreed, laugh-
ing. "Can't be too particular working for a
city, I suppose."
But my delicacy in the matter of the crisp
twenties did not make me immune from sus-
picion; for when it was discovered at head-
quarters that I was acting as emergency super-
intendent on my reservoir, I was quickly trans-
ferred to another piece of work. Nothing
was said to me as to motives for the change,
but I gathered from certain side remarks and
meteorological indications that Caesar's wife
had me "skinned a mile."
Now came the results of the much-dreaded
examination. How many of us were to lose
our jobs? How many outsiders were coming
in? Not without misgivings I opened the
official-looking envelope which came to me.
But judge my astonishment when I discovered
that of the sixty aspirants I, who had never
worked for a city before, had taken first place.
To assume that this was because I knew more
about it than some of the old-timers was ridic-
ulous. My superiors didn't think so. I
didn't even think so myself. But I had suc-
ceeded better than they in temporarily stuff-
ing my head with certain information.
My second surprise came when, on the
strength of my rank, I sounded my august
chiefs on the subject of promotion. There
were vacancies ahead; naturally I expected to
occupy the first opening. The august chiefs
explained, however, that though they had no
doubt of my ability to take a high position, the
civil service organization didn't work that way.
I was welcome to my present position for all
time. In fact, as I afterward discovered, it is
a very difficult thing to get rid of a civil service
inspector. He may fail to appear on Monday
mornings on account of a chronic stomach
trouble; he may be lazy and inattentive; he
may even be guilty of downright drunkenness
during working hours; but so long as these
things are not reported too often, he can hardly
be punished otherwise than by a certain number
of days' lay-off without pay. To discharge
him outright requires that some very grave
charge be actually proved against him; whereas,
were he working for any other organization, the
mere suspicion that he was not working for the
very best interests of his employers would
immediately cause his discharge by wire.
This is, no doubt, very comforting to a con-
firmed civil service man; but to offset this was
the fact just explained to me that the only road
to promotion lay in waiting for another exam-
ination for a higher position in which I should
have to take my chances against all comers.
The fact that I was already in line with experi-
ence and acquaintance gained in my present
position availed nothing.
Rather crestfallen, then, I went back to my
work, but hardly had an hour passed "before I
received an invitation from a corporation to
join its engineering staff. If my rating meant
nothing to the city, it evidently did to others.
I decided at once to follow the natural line of
least resistance toward more appreciation and
higher pay.
So it happened that a municipality that
had hired me on probation and taken six
months to determine my proper rank, was
put to the expense and inconvenience of find-
ing my successor almost on the very first
day that it could have felt fully justified in
trusting me with its affairs.
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ii
FLORENTINE YEARS IN RETROSPECT
BY
ELIHU VEDDER
IF THE Bohemia I belonged to in Paris
had been divided into classes, I think
that I could have been returned as a
Member for Upper Bohemia. Not that I
was proud or rich; on the contrary, I was
poor; but I had a washerwoman and I paid
my bills.
In Paris I lived in full Bohemia; not so
in Florence, which was full of opportunities
for quitting it. I lived in a sort of borderland.
Why I did not seek the society of the titled,
the great, the learned, the good, who were
all about me, I do not know. I went on
tampering with both sides. I was like the
young man brought before the judge, who
said to him: "Here are you, well educated
and of respectable parents, instead of which
you go about stealing ducks !"
There were reasons, however. I was a
fierce republican and thought titles foolish
and wrong. The wise knew too much for
me; the good were too good for me, or at
least I did not feel inclined to follow in their
footsteps just then. The refined seemed
lacking in jollity, and, above all, I was very
jealous of my freedom; and then the boys
were not too wise and good for human nature's
daily food and we had a glorious time.
To some the shade of Savonarola and of
Dante may seem to hang over Florence; to
me the merry spirit of Boccaccio was a living
presence. Florence seemed no garden of
lost opportunities to me then, although it was,
as a matter of fact. After all, " there's nothing
either good or bad but thinking makes it so"
— and then I thought things were very good.
And yet there was not lacking that rich,
romantic sadness of youth. I had it very
badly and enjoyed it immensely: otherwise
how account for my preparations for dying
young, preparations for which event were
amply provided for in numberless subjects
I then conceived but, with few exceptions,
never executed — the alchemist dying just
as he had made his grand discovery; the
young hermit praying for death; the old
man at the gate of a graveyard; the end of
a misspent life; and a lot of other things.
In a great many of the things that I have
done since prevails that sadness peculiar
to youth, and its survival shows how much
of youth I yet retain. As for dying young,
I have lost my opportunity, for I am now in
the very springtime of old age and have only
the chance of dying in my second childhood.
In Florence I was too near to see the great
outlines, for some of the people there were
great people — people who had done or were
doing great work: but I was too near. All
that I write should go under the heading of
"How It Seemed to Me Then." All the
seasons had passed in the garden of childhood
and boyhood, and now it was again spring in
this Florentine Garden of Lost Opportunities.
And all the flowers were in full bloom: those
I gathered and those I neglected to gather
are dry enough now.
To me the heights in Florence were chiefly
those of Bellosguardo, although all my dis-
tinguished friends lived on heights. On those
heights I found the air too pure and thin for
my vigorous young lungs, so I lived in the
vale below.
They were all intellectual, highly cultured,
literary, and artistic — above all literary.
Some lived their own lives, but, with the
exception of the really great, these good people
seemed to live a little, fussy, literary life,
filled with their sayings and doings; in fact,
taking out the deeds, each one would have
furnished all the materials for a splendid
biography. I say a few lived their own lives,
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but most of them seemed to be living up
to the great ones of their acquaintance or up to
each other — somewhat like the inhabitants
of that Irish village where they lived by taking
in each other's washing.
For all these reasons I remained, with an
occasional ascent, on the lower levels until
Kate Field "sailed into my ken." She was
the first woman of charm and intellect I had
seen; and with her bright smile and hearty
laugh, combined with her innate refinement,
she quite bowled me over. I then felt a
strong inclination to live up to her level, but
never could. But before her advent a great
day came for Florence.
The Italians were coming; the Grand Duke
was going. I had sprained my ankle jumping
over a hedge while "showing off" before the
girls of the Black family up at Bellosguardo.
There had been much plotting in the Caffe
Michelangelo. I had not been taken into
the plot; but, being a rank republican, I
was considered one of them. So when the
final day came, I limped along with the rest
to the Fortezza di Basso, and we fraternized
with the soldiers. The Italian colors were
hoisted and the bands broke out into Gari-
baldi's hymn and other patriotic airs never
heard before in Florence. Where could they
have been practising ?
There was a rumor that the Grand Duke
had sent sealed orders for the forts to bombard
the city and that an officer had said that rather
than do that he would break his sword across
his knee: it was terrible! The Grand Duke
didn't send to have the orders opened and
the sword remained unbroken. On the con-
trary, the Duke went away with a great
quantity of luggage; the crowd that assembled
to witness his departure remained perfectly
silent as his carriages rolled out of the gates;
it was most impressive.
The town was not bombarded or sacked. A
few francescani changed hands when all the
boys of the Caffe Michelangelo came out in
their new uniforms, but the money remained
in the hands of the tailors. That was all the
damage that the Revolution had done.
FRIENDS OF FLORENTINE DAYS
The Italians frequented the Caffe Michel-
angelo in the Via Larga, while the English
and Americans confined themselves to a cafc
near the Ponte Vecchio: I have forgotten
the name, which is as bad as an old New
Yorker forgetting Delmonico's. In fact, my
intimate friends seemed to live in these caffe,
and I saw a great deal of them, while the
literary people lived in their houses in town,
or in villas in the environs, and I saw them
only when I actually or metaphorically
ascended the heights. And I must confess
that I found the frequenters of the caffe the
more interesting.
My old master in drawing, Bonaiuti, was
a man of another age, an old-fashioned Floren-
tine. He was a mild, faded-looking man,
but hid under that exterior an iron will. He
had once been given the commission to make
drawings of most of the marbles in the Vatican
Gallery, and had taken advantage of that
opportunity to study them for his own improve-
ment, so that I cannot conceive of anyone
understanding the antique better than he did.
His explanations and illustrations of the Elgin
marbles given me during his lessons were
beautiful and I felt quite unworthy of the
privilege.
The scheme of his life was as simple as his
life itself. He made the most beautiful copies
of Fra Angelicos and thus provided the means
of supporting himself and his two maiden
sisters, and all the rest went toward the painting
of his one great picture. He was going to
paint that and make one statue and then his
life work would be accomplished. The picture
represented the "Temptation on the Mount"
— Christ repulsing the Devil, who is shown
as falling backward toward the beholder.
These figures were built up from the skeleton
and were so thoroughly studied that he hated
to clothe them. The Christ, who was repre-
sented with the long and noble muscles of
the Greek heroes, had naturally to be draped,
while the fiend, who was given the short,
knotty muscles of the satyr, remained nude.
He made cartoon after cartoon, full size, of
this picture; but just when he thought that
he had reached perfection he found some
fault of anatomy or perspective, and it had
to be done all over again. I once asked him
how he was going to color it when he had
succeeded in getting it all drawn in to his
satisfaction on the canvas, and he answered
with the simplicity of a child, "Like Titian."
When I left he was commencing a new cartoon.
He was a Merlin. Had his spell been a little
stronger I should have been pursuing my
preliminary studies to this day.
There was another picture in Florence
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which bade fair to rival Bonaiuti's in its delayed
execution, had not the painter gotten over
his difficulty by a device. This picture repre-
sented the Florentines going into battle with
the great standard ("Gonf alone") borne on a
cart drawn by oxen. On this cart was also
an altar and a crucifix, before which a priest
prayed constantly during the battle. The
Gonfalone streamed out against a stormy
sky and the priest's garments fluttered in
the wind which swept upward the incense.
The candles were blown out and the oxen
were in wild disorder while the battle raged
around. And here the trouble began: there
was one hind leg of an ox which refused to
compose, no matter in what position it was
drawn. The painter was in despair until he
hit upon the device of hiding it behind a group
of men fighting in the foreground. This
group turned out so large and was painted
With such spirit that the great standard and
the cart and the oxen made but a background
for it, and the group became the picture.
It was a little that way in the case of Bon-
aiuti. His Devil, with his fine foreshortening,
became the most interesting feature of the
picture. He always is.
How shall I describe my friend Gortigiani,
with his inexhaustible supply of funny stories
and his habit when painting a portrait of
lighting his Toscano, throwing the match on
the floor, taking a puff or two, painting like
mad, re-lighting the Toscano and repeating
the action until he was knee-deep in matches!
Or how well he could with his supple and
limber body imitate a squeezed tube of paint I
Then there was my stout friend Banty, the
amateur and excellent painter, who used to
say that it was pretty hard, just because he
was fat, that he could never allude tq senti-
ment without being laughed at, while another
friend who had no more real sentiment than a
frying-pan was allowed to talk it by the hour.
This sentimental Raphael fell into a great
rage when Tivoli came back from Paris full
of the praises of Troyon. " What kind of art
is this you are talking about? Look at
the subjects. A cow who scratches herself
against a tree. No, no. That's not senti-
ment! " And then he would go back to his
picture of the fair maiden clinging to an ivy-
covered tree, with a French quotation indicative
of the character of both maid and ivy. I
think as far as the titles go it was a toss-up.
I had two intimate English friends: the
bright, talented, ill-fated Green, and the
studious and refined Yeames — he of the
rich, gouty uncle who had the best cook and
the worst digestion of anyone in Florence.
Yeames tried to instil into me a love of poetry.
The seed then planted has grown, but I con-
fess it has been a plant of very slow growth.
RECOLLECTIONS OF RINEHABT
Among the Americans was for a time the
ever-cheerful and buoyant Rinehart, the sculp-
tor, who on one occasion was anything but
buoyant and might have stopped my digressing
and his cheerfulness in a tragic manner. At
that time, near the bridge of La Carraja, were
moored a lot of old mills on great scows,
forming one of the most picturesque features
of the river, and just below them in the boiling
water from the mills were baths. I was
standing on a spring-board, about to jump
in, when I saw Rinehart being whirled about in
the eddies; he was red in the face, and I sud-
denly realized that something was the matter.
Without more ado I jumped in, swam to him,
and said: "What? you're not drowning, are
you?" He at once wrapped his legs and
arms about me, and had it not been for a
rope hanging down just within my reach, it
would have been all up with us, for he had
rendered me utterly powerless either to save
him or myself. A boat was shoved toward us
and we got him out. A glass of cognac
brought him to; he could never remember
anything about it. It was a good lesson to
me, for in after years in Naples, when I
managed to get a Jew to a place of safety
under almost the same circumstances, I did
it with the utmost safety to myself. Neither
Rinehart nor the Jew ever thanked me, but
I think some prize student of the Rinehart
Fund in the American Academy here in Rome
might offer me a cigar.
And there was old Hart — he of the crude
manners, who used to write poems and try
to pass them off as Byron's or Beatty's, and
deceived no one. But the boys used to fool
him to the top of his bent. He had a nephew
who had come out to him to work a portrait
machine that he had invented, and he had
promised to teach the nephew sculpture in
return for his services, but he became jealous
of him and treated him like a brute. In this
machine, after you had assumed a natural
pose and look, you were rendered immovable
by screws and other appliances, and long
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steel points were driven at you until they
touched, and were then withdrawn. It was
like that horrible chair of the Middle Ages,
called "the Virgin," wherein you were invited
to sit, and were caught and foully murdered.
The machine remained idle for want of victims;
to look at it was enough. The nephew was
a man of great promise. Having nothing,
he married a very poor but refined and intel-
ligent lady who copied in the Galleries, and
they became, of course, twice as poor; but,
to make up, they were very happy. And
then he died. Rinehart took sides with old
Hart, as being his oldest friend. I sided
with young Hart, but it made no difference
between us, for no one ever quarreled with
Rinehart. He belongs to the Roman period
and formed one of its best features.
THE ECCENTRICITIES OF INCHBOLD
I must not forget to mention the English
painter, Inchbold, a full-blown pre-Raphaelite
— one of whom Ruskin is reported to have
said that a square inch by Inchbold was worth
a square yard of almost any other painter's
work. This, it may well be imagined, did not
tend to lower the angle at which Inchbold's
nose was set. I became very well acquainted
with him and, in fact, counted him among my
friends. He must have liked me, for years
afterward he sent my wife a pretty little card,
evidently painted expressly for her. Having
mentioned his nose, I may as well go on and
say that his face seemed permanently pervaded
by a flush which conveyed the impression
that he was on the verge of getting angry;
he never did, however, to my knowledge.
William Rossetti describes this perfectly:
"He was a nervous, impressionable man, with
ruddy complexion, a rather blunt address
in which a certain uneasy modesty contended
with a certain still uneasier self-value." We
watched his proceedings with great interest.
He certainly did, as Bunthorne says, "by hook
or crook contrive to (make things) look both
angular and flat." He was conscientious to
a degree but his conscience had an elastic
quality; the fact is that pre-Raphaelites did
not so much aim at representing nature
faithfully as they did to give their work the
look or stamp of the "movement" they
represented.
For instance, in one of his pictures there
was what appeared to be a very small girl
standing among very large leaves. Now in
reality it was a very large girl on a terrace
below, seen through the leaves. She must
have been some ten yards distant; this fact
was ignored, but all the ravages of insects
were shown in these leaves with the utmost
faithfulness. He simply left out the air and
represented things as seen with one eye. In
the same picture there was a cypress tree
cutting across a field and merging with a wood
on the other side about a mile off. It con-
fused the mind, and I asked him why he did
not leave it out. He replied, "It was there."
"But," I said, "I don't want you to change
the form of the mountains or anything essen-
tial, but cut down that tree" — but it was
of no use.
Shortly after, he was painting a view of
Florence from his window across the Arno.
It was winter; the great hills covered with
snow gave a bleakness to the scene only too
well known to those who know Florence well.
The point was that he had moved the Cam-
panile of San Croce most outrageously far
from its real position — about a quarter of a
mile. "But," said I, "how about this?"
"It composes better that way." "But then
how about that tree you would not cut down ? "
I don't know how he got out of it; he cer-
tainly got redder.
It was the same in the night-school. A
florid Venetian-like model he made into a
sharp-nosed thing with so much green in her
complexion that she looked more like a
vegetable than a human being — but he gave
her the real pre-Raphaelite look. At this
time Hotchkiss was trying to break away from
this influence of Ruskin. With me it worked
well, as can be seen by my studies at that time,
and badly in that I went on filling my studio
with careful studies that I have never used.
I am sorry to see in William Rossetti's
account of Inchbold that he was unsuccessful
and died "at a not very advanced age." J
always thought that Ruskin's approval had
spelled success for him. It seemed to me
that in his art he had ceased improving and
could only go on.
One thing more : I never could get from Inch-
bold a clear definition of what constituted pre-
Raphaelitism. Going back to the art previous
to Raphael? Not quite that. In fact, put it
as I would, there was always a something in
which the pre-Raphaelites differed from other
men; and I have not been able to settle the
point yet except that in their art they must
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differ from all others and their pictures must
have "the look:'
I first came across their work in New York,
in the pictures of Farrar, and it seemed to
me needlessly hard and crude when represent-
ing things whose nature was soft and har-
monious, and therefore I looked on it as an
affectation. In Florence, Hotchkiss and myself
were painting as faithfully as we knew how,
and particularly that Pointeau — he who used
to come in from his painting from nature
how sincere they were; and, most undoubtedly,
had I been brought up in England at that
time and more immediately under their
influence, I should have been of them.
A STORY ABOUT WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Among the dispensations of Providence, it
seems that some men are permitted to become
great writers without having much knowl-
edge of art — although they write about it.
Among these was Walter Savage Landor. I
"CT A
?W ft »
'THE CUMAEAN SIBYL"
about th? time the est of us were taking our
breakfast, bringing back with him drawings,
veritable photographs from nature, only better.
Therefore the works of Inchbold, needlessly
insisting upon unessential details at the
expense of the general effect, and what
appeared an exaggeration of color, led us
to think, not unnaturally, that his object
was dictated more by a desire to give the
style of the pre-Raphaelites than* a love of
truth or nature. Now I see, however, from
Holman Hunt's account of the movement,
never knew him, but my friend Kate Field
became a favorite of his, and through her my
friend Coleman painted his portrait. It was
during the sittings he gave Coleman that the
ignorance of art on his part transpired. (You
will remember that R. Grant White, in his
"Words and their Uses," says that to transpire
means "to leak out." And that was just what
happened.)
Coleman, wishing to spare his eyes, posed
him with his back to the window. Landor's
hair being white, the light shining through
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"THE GOLDEN NET"
it formed a luminous fringe about his head.
Landor, getting up to see the progress of the
work, at once saw my friend's attempt to
reproduce this effect and cried out:
"Why, you have given me a nimbus. I
won't have a nimbus !"
In vain Coleman tried to explain to him
this effect of light; it was always:
"I won't have a nimbus — no nimbus!"
The Savage in his name was very appro-
priate. They used to tell of his going into
court, during some law trouble he was having,
"PERSEUS AND MEDUSA"
with a bag of gold, which he banged down
before the judge, saying:
"I hear that this is the place where justice
is bought and sold, 'and I have come to buy
some."
I believe it cost him a pretty penny, for
contempt of court.
Speaking of words and their uses, Kate
Field used to tell of a man who, rushing into
some country town, asked where he would
be liable to get a ham. This irresistibly
reminds me of what used to happen in the
FELLOW-ARTISTS OF THE FLORENTINE DAYS, IN COSTUME
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Villa Landor. If a dish offended him, Landor
would "chuck it out of window," so that a
passer-by might have been liable to get a ham
without looking for it.
The banks of the Mugnone torrent, which
runs around a part of Florence past the Porta
San Gallo, used to be a favorite walk of the
frequenters of the Caffe Michelangelo. There
also was the ground of the game of pallone,
questions of the day. Following up the stream,
it finally passed under a bridge at the foot of
the long ascent which leads to Fiesole. It
was here that I painted two of my best studies,
and also a. little picture that I always thought
highly of. These things show that originally
I was a landscape painter and that now I, am
only the lively remains of one.
The little picture was really a sketch that
KATE FIELD AT THE AGE OF TWENTY
From an oil-portrait by Mr. Vedder. It is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
a noble game, almost gladiatorial in character,
of which I was a passionate admirer. On
the high banks of this stream, overlooking
the country bounded by the great bare hills
from which in winter came those icy blasts
that gave us all sore eyes (the eyes having
been previously prepared in the acrid tobacco
smoke of the cafe during the long winter eve-
nings, or strained while painting by the little
smoky, dim, oil-lamps of the Accademia
Galli), we walked and settled all the great
I made on a dark, stormy day, of Fiesole
with the road and cypresses coming down
from it. Into the foreground I painted three
Dominican friars, whose black and white gar-
ments carried out the feeling that was to be
seen in hillside and sky. This little picture
must have perished in a loan exhibition held
in Madison Square Garden, when part of the
building collapsed. The memory of its loss
is one of my pet griefs to this day.
In a house near the bridge, three of us lived
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MR. VEDDER, AT THE CLOSE OF THE FLORENTINE PERIOD
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MR. VEDDER IN "THE DAYS OF PICNICS AND MINUETS"
"It took the united efforts of the family to get him into these breeches"
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12568
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
and worked. One was a Mrs. Hay, a strong
pre-Raphaelite and a woman of great talent.
She told me that her husband in London was
a man who smoked and painted all night by
gaslight, while she was a lover of the clear
dawn and the bright day, and of Fra Angelico.
One might have supposed that such an arrange-
ment wouljdjiave been advantageous to both,
but such was not the case; hence Florence,
for her part.
The other was Altamura, a wonderfully
clever man, whose style -changed with every
passing whim of the artistic world, and whose
facile hand often ran away with his head.
both as food and fuel. I did not like to ask
my Florentine banker for an advance; for
while he was one of the most generous of souls,
his partner in Rome held him to so strict an
account that he usually could not oblige me.
Strange to say, when in Rome afterward, I
went to his partner and heard the same state
of affairs; it was always that close-fisted and
stingy Florentine partner that checked his
naturally generous impulses; although I
will say the Roman was the noblest of them all
and would lend — on compound interest.
I fear I digress.
My sleeping apartment in Florence was then
'THE LAIR OF THK SEA-SERPENT '
Mrs. Hay's little boy was pure Anglo-Saxon,
with long blonde hair, and Altamura's was a
dark Oriental with dreaming eyes and curling
raven locks. In the summer evenings while
the moon rose over Fiesole, stretched on the
warm, dry grass under the olives, we used to
have our evening meal, and there the little
boys told strange stortes of their thoughts and
dreams.
THE PINCH OF POVERTY
The time came when, owing to some stoppage
in my remittance, my funds were so low as
to be imperceptible, and I found the large,
roasted Italian chestnut was warm to the
hand and filling to the stomach, thus serving
in the Via dei Maccheroni. To be a mac-
cheroni was, in the old London days, to be a
great dandy; I only lived in a street of that
name, and my modest tailor's bill proved me
to be no maccheroni, although well content
at that time to get enough of that excellent
food. I told my landlady that I must move
into cheaper quarters, although I did not see
how I could well do that, and she asked at
once what they could have done to displease
me? After much trouble I made her under-
stand the true state of the case, and she begged
me to wait until she could consult her husband.
The husband was an honest man, much
trusted in the pharmacy where he was
employed, and was paid good wages. Then
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MR
. ELIHU VEDDER IN HIS ITALIAN GARDEN
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12570
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
the good Caterina, after much beating about
the bush, told me with emotion that they had
become very fond of me, that they had no
child, and that they had enough, with her
husband's earnings, not to feel it in the least;
would I not stay with them until better times,
or as long as I pleased and was pleased with
them, but not break their hearts by going
away ? So I stayed on until one day the poor
man was taken sick and, in spite of our most
affectionate care, died in my arms. In the
As I went home from the Caffe Michelangelo
that last evening, Banti, my fat friend, begged
me to stop a moment while he went into his
studio. It was then dark night, but he
returned, having managed to find a little
cinque cento iron box which he gave me as
a keepsake. This is the only present I remem-
ber to have received during my four years'
stay — except good advice. I cherish the
gift; but the good advice I have long since
forgotten. It seemed to me then that could
4 ST. SIMEON STYLITES
meantime I had painted a little Madonna for
her, with Santa Catarina and Sant'Eligio at
the sides; after I had left and when she was
in need, a friend's purchase of this picture
enabled me to help her a little.
Affairs in America, both public and private,
had been going from bad to worse. The
future looked dark. My last remittance had
come, and my last francesconi had been drawn
from the bank; this little sum, together with
the few dollars from my painting, just served
to see me through, and I got home without
a cent.
A SKETCH MADE IN VENICE
my father have managed to keep up that
$600 a year, I would never have left.
From my studio, where I had packed
my pictures and small belongings, the last
thing I remember was wafting a kiss to a
pretty girl at a window opposite and see-
ing the wave of a handkerchief, with perhaps
a tear in it.
And thus I left Eden. The world was all
before me, but as to the where — I had no
choice; so I followed the Arno to where it is
lost in the sunset, and at Leghorn embarked
for home.
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A ZEPPELIN AIRSHIP
Its flight of goo miles in May would have carried it from Cologne nearly to Liverpool and back
ENGLAND AND GERMANY:
WILL THEY FIGHT?
BY
WILLIAM BAYARD HALE
[Mr. Hale has just returned from Europe, in whose chief capitals he spent a year in confi-
dential relations with governmental chiefs. He enjoyed, therefore, unique opportunities not
only o) learning many facts not generally known, but of acquainting himself, at first hand,
with the views held in the highest quarters. — The Editors.]
THEY are talking, in Europe, of a war
— a war in which two of the most
powerful nations would face each
other, with the largest armies and the biggest
navies ever envisaged in battle; with weapons
more destructive than any ever used before.
It would be a war stupifying in the suffering
that it would entail, prodigious in its effect
upon the lives of two peoples, colossal in the
scale to which it would almost inevitably
develop, stupendous in the possibilities of
universal conflict which it would open. It
does not require imagination to see the
spread of this war till it should rage over
all Europe, call Japan again to arms, make
China a battlefield, and weaken or break
the hold of home governments on widely
scattered colonies; it rather requires ingenuity
to find grounds for hoping that it would
not extend its effects to both hemispheres
and to all continents.
What two nations want to fight? No two.
What two nations have a known quarrel?
No two. Who, then, are expected to provide
this war? England and Germany.
Wherever Englishmen or Germans meet>
be they diplomats or publicists or business
men, on the street, at home, in the clubs, one
invariable subject comes up and is discussed
with grave voices. Discussion is little help to
enlightenment, for iiobody knows — not even
the chiefs of state — why Germany and
England should fight, yet somehow the groups
always separate with deepened conviction that
they will.
This war talk is not new. I\ has been going
on for three years. It refuses to die out; it
deepens in seriousness and volume. There*
was a moment, early last spring, when it
manifested itself hysterically. Some account
of the "Englishman's Home" panic, of the
frenzied recruiting of February and March,
of the fevered Parliamentary debate of May
and June have reached America, but there
can be little idea here of the extent to which
the hearts of all Englishmen were moved, as
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
A GERMAN COLLECTION -BOX
Exhibited in London by a member of Parliament who said that the sign
over it was: " Give the Government your Coins to Thrash the English "
the tree-tops of the forest are moved by the
tempest.
The public commotion has ceased, but in
its place is a settled fear, answering to the
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" MADE IN GERMANY "
" There," said a German diplomat, " is the Briton's grievance against
us — too many things are ' made in Germany ' "
"ominous hush" of Europe, which Lord
Rosebery thinks is more sinister and signifi-
cant than the bluster which preceded it.
As for Germany, there has never been a
panic there; only a slow gathering of belief
"that war is inevitable. A visitor to Berlin,
Cologne, or Frankfort to-day would find that
belief widely and seriously held, and he would
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A SCENE IN "THE ENGLISHMAN'S HOME"
A play which aroused all England to a discussion of the possibilities of a German invasion
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT? 12573
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SOME OF THE MEN WHO MAY INVADE ENGLAND
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THK GERMAN EMPEROR, SURROUNDED BY HIS GENERALS
The Kaiser is the real war-lord and not merely the nominal head of the army and navy
A PART OF GERMANY'S TOTAL AVAILABLE FORCE OF 4,800,000 SOLDIERS
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12574
ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
A LINE OF BRITISH BATTLESHIPS FIRING THE ROYAL SALUTE
find, moreover, that commercial arrangements
and business plans were being conditioned upon
the continuance of peace. In other parts of
Europe events wait upon the issue; the
diplomacy of France, of Austria, of Russia,
marks time.
THE "VANGUARD," THE MOST FORMIDABLE BRITISH
44 SUPER-DREADNOUGHT " NOW IN THE WATER
Is the general fear of Europe justified? Is
there, indeed, imminent prospect of a conflict?
Let us inspect the situation:
Neither the German Government nor the
British seeks war nor desires it.
No dispute, issue, nor controversy exists
between them, nor does the prospect of any
exist.
No honest ground for hostilities could be
found by either if it desired to-day to assault
the other — a pretext would have to be
invented. There exists no secret dossier that
troubles the chancellories; there impends no
delicate negotiation to justify concern. So, as
the course of international relations ordinarily
proceeds, there is no cloud in the sky. Rela-
tions could be no more strictly "correct" than
they are.
It is possible to go further: Those respon-
sible for the conduct of the Government of
England, and equally those responsible for
the conduct of that of Germany, not only do
not desire war, but, for the strongest of
reasons, do to-day desire to avoid war.
England is engrossed with an internal situa-
tion critical and interesting; the Government
has embarked on a programme of social
reorganization, including the revaluation of
lands, provision for old-age pensions, and
insurance against non-employment. This pro-
gramme, although not yet fully entered upon,
has necessitated a budget so heavy that it
is attacked as a revolution. War is expen-
sive; its many minor wars have cost England
dear; victory over the Boers was at a price
THE BRITISH FLEET AT COWES, WITH THE ROYAL YACHT PASSING DOWN THE LINE
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
12575
THE GERMAN " DREADNOUGHTS " IN LINE FORMATION
truly staggering. The bill for a contest with
Germany would be appalling; though England
is still the richest nation in the world, six
months of such a conflict would halve the
great fortunes of its rich and double the suf-
fering of its starving poor. It is with the
greatest reluctance that a Liberal Government
has this year appropriated for the navy about
half what the newspapers and the Admiralty
authorities demanded.
The German Government likewise has
devoted most of its energy during the last three
years to an anxious search for means to pro-
cure more revenue to meet its peace expenses.
And that task has been so difficult that (the
paramount issue of internal politics) it has
split the bloc which ruled Germany for a decade,
and brought about the resignation of a great
Chancellor. Germany, furthermore, is pass-
ing through a period of commercial and
industrial development which war could not
but disturb and paralyze. The Germans
are finding a profitable and a growing
market in England and the British col-
onies; while, on the other hand, they furnish
England with one of the latter's best
THE "NASSAU," WHICH HEADS THE LIST OF GERMAN " SUPER-DREADNOUGHTS n
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
BRITISH INFANTRY MARCHING AGAINST "THE GERMANS" IN THE ARMY MANCEUVRES
The total of immediately available British soldiers is 265,000
markets. Peace is desirable on every score
of common sense.
Against the likelihood of war the personal
influence of the sovereigns of the two countries
reenforces the desires of their constitutional
authorities.
There has been, judged by the information
which has come to me, some overestimate of
King Edward's activity in international politics
but undoubtedly his influence is strongly for
peace. He is a man of complaisant disposi-
tion; while not indolent, a lover of ease; a
man annoyed by contention. Gracious and
tactful, behind him the authority accumulated
from the long respect and regard of "his peo-
ple/' the king might in a moment of crisis be
able to throw much influence into the scale of
peace. He is more German than English,
and uses the tongue of the land over which he
reigns with the gutteral accent of the Teuton.
The Kaiser might, with some plausibility,
be said to be more English than German. He
speaks the language of his mother flawlessly.
Always idiomatic, whether discussing archi-
tecture, theology, art, sport, or international
affairs, the technical English word leaps
instantly into the torrent of his speech. There
has never come from him an authentically
reported utterance betraying anything but
friendship for England and the English.
BRITISH ARTILLERY PASSING IN REVIEW AT ALDERSHOT
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
12577
GERMAN INFANTRY ENGAGED IN MANOEUVRES
The total of immediately available German soldiers is 1,900,000
The German Emperor has now reigned for
twenty-one years. When he ascended the
throne it was predicted and widely feared that
the new ruler, with exalted ideas of kingly and
imperial authority and intense military zeal,
would at once plunge into the arena of martial
glory. For twenty-one years he has com-
manded the most powerful army that the
world has ever seen — and he has kept the
peace. In contrast with his uncle, a man of
strong opinions, wide-ranging interests, and
eager sympathy, the Emperor has learned to
restrain his arm in the midst of more temp-
tations and provocations than the world
dreams of.
Both Powers are keenly alive to the dangers
of a conflict. It could only be a fight to a
finish. It would almost certainly involve
other Powers. Japan is in full alliance with
England; Russia and France are its sworn
GERMAN ARTILLERY PASSING THROUGH A VILLAGE
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12578
ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
friends. The vitality of the Drei-Bund was
proven last spring; Italy may be lukewarm,
but Austria is heart and hand with Germany.
Austria's policies are now inspired by one of
the most daring minds that has bent its atten-
tion upon the map of Europe, a mind ably
tutored by the German Kaiser to an appreci-
ation of the alluring landscapes along the road
to Constantinople. The opening of hostilities
would fling the territory of a continent into the
arena. In particular it would release the
springs of the most vital ambitions of Con-
recollection that India will flame into revolt
the day that British brigades start home to
defend the Island, must chill and destroy any
English dream of victorious war.
CONFLICT BELIEVED TO BE INEVITABLE
Considerations so strong as these might
seem to be decisive. What can be said to
qualify their force, or to outweigh them? In
the face of such reasons for peace, what earthly
ground is there for believing that Germany
and England are about to fight?
COAST-DEFENDERS REPELLING AN "ATTACK" ON PORTSMOUTH, THE NAVAL CENTRE OF
ENGLAND
tinental politics: Austria's yearning to drive
Russia out of the Balkans, and France's lust
for revenge and the recovery of its lost prov-
inces. From a struggle which would dwarf
the Napoleonic cataclysm of a century ago,
who can say what would emerge? What cell
in the mind of Kaiser or King could dream of
inviting such chances? The remembrance
that France lies eager to spring across the
frontier the moment an army corps leaves
German soil, must dissipate any conquering
dream of the strategists of Potsdam. The
The answer is this: The most serious possible
ground for fearing thai Germany and England
are about to fight is — the belief of the people
of Germany and England that they are about to
do so.
I do not mean primarily that the prevalence
of that belief indicates the existence of causes,
unknown to the world, rendering conflict
inevitable. I mean primarily that talk of war,
however causeless, tends to beget war. Famil-
iarize two nations with the daily thought of
fighting — and it will be a miracle if they fail
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12580
ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
REGULAR GARRISONED TROOPS
BRITISH
GERMAN
806,000
600,000
to fight Let them occupy themselves daily
for two or three years with discussing, even
with utterly denying, the possibility of a
thing — and that thing becomes more than
possible. Discuss causes of war, deny that
they exist — and you provoke them.
I mean to say that it is of no consequence
that you are all the time protesting that war
is impossible. You are all the time talking
of it. It does not matter what is said on a
subject; the matter is that the subject is kept
constantly in mind; it becomes an obsession,
to which everything relates itself; a subcon-
scious process is set up, tending to a con-
clusion with which rational thought has nothing
to do. Every incident takes on special signifi-
cance bearing on the obsessing idea. Events
are scrutinized with a purpose which, though
unconscious, becomes fixed, and is not likely
to fail. Everybody is unconsciously on the
lookout for an offense. Speeches, words —
REGULAR ARMIES. 1*800,000
OF THE GERMAN TROOPS,
HAVING SERVED TWO YEARS
IN BARRACKS AND FIELD
ARE COMPLETING THEIR
FIVE YEARS' ENLISTMENT
AT HOME, BUT ARE READY
FOR INSTANT SERVICE
BRITISH
GERMAN
866,000
1,000,000
authorized or unauthorized — are instinctively
read in the light of the reigning suspicion. The
national mind is prepared for an emotional
crisis, which any trivial accident may release;
for a national "brain-storm," in the passion
of which the murderous deed will be swiftly
done.
There is nothing far-fetched nor fanciful
in this. It is precisely what most often hap-
pens with nations. Few wars are deliberately
begun. Seldom indeed does a Government
willingly direct the opening of hostilities;
almost always it is forced to fight by a sudden
popular clamor. Who believes that the United
REGULARS IMMEDIATELY
AVAILABLE FOR EUROPEAN
OPERATIONS. MORE THAN
HALF THE BRITISH ARMY IS
IN INDIA AND THE COLONIES,
AND MUST BE KEPT THERE
FOR THEIR DEFENSE
BRITISH
GERMAN
186,000
1,900,000
States would have found it necessary to go to
the extreme of war with Spain except for the
hysteria fomented by sensational newspapers?
An individual is often swayed to the most
momentous deeds of his life by sudden emotion,
by the bursting of the dams with which reason
had for years restrained a prejudice or a
suspicion. Much more inflammable than the
emotion of an individual is that of a populace.
Englishmen and Germans are telling them-
selves that a conflict is impossible, that it would
be causeless and purposeless. They are trying
to believe this, but in the very act of denying
the dire possibility, they have convinced them-
selves of its inevitability. They exchange
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
12581
BRITISH
ALL AVAILABLE REGULARS, RESERVES, AND MILITIA OF EVERY DES-
CRIPTION (TERRITORIALS, " LANDWEHR," " LANDSTURM," "ERSATZ," ETC.),
IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL
666,000
GERMAN
4,800,000
friendly visits — and hasten war preparations.
This year a body of visiting German burgo-
masters were feasted at the Guildhall, London.
Aldermen came to the banquet fresh from
frenzied mass-meetings summoned to enlist
volunteers for defense against German inva-
sion. A group of English ecclesiastics traveled
through Germany and were graciously received
by the Emperor. Naturally, it was not thought
that the pious travelers would be interested
in the worldly night-and-day activities of the
Krupp works at Essen or the ship-building
yards on the Elbe. The King went in state to
Berlin and was entertained by bis imperial
nephew with every mark of affection. At
the very moment when his father and his
cousin were exchanging compliments, with
lifted glasses, in the palace on the Spree, the
Prince of Wales sat in a box in a London
theatre and watched a play which describes the
over-night invasion of England by the army of
"His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of the
North." Two Cabinet ministers were in the
audience that night, and then and for months
thousands of Englishmen besieged that theatre
vainly trying to get within the door.
At the Aldershot practice manoeuvres this
year, the "combatants" referred to each other
as "the Germans."
"Isn't that an ill-considered custom?" an
officer was asked. "Isn't it calculated to
encourage hatred and stir up bad blood?"
"I don't know as to that," he replied, "but
it certainly is calculated to get the keenest
sort of work out of the men. They are lazy
beggars unless we set 'em on 'the Germans';
then you should see them!"
Many Englishmen believe that the country is
full of German spies, and that there is a
formidatye organization of Germans, mostly
waiters, who possess arms and who secretly
drill. That a certain moment of the day on
every German ship is devoted to the drinking
of the toast "To the day!" — meaning the
day of battle with the British — is another
belief widespread in England.
To-day there is no thought more familiar
to English men, women, and children, no idea
more constantly present in their minds, than
the danger of German invasion. No issue of
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12582
ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
any newspaper ever appears that does not
contain in somd form or other a column or a
paragraph dictated by that thought; no debate
in Parliament ever closes without a reference
to it; no public meeting ever disperses before
it has been remembered. I do not say that
all Englishmen admittedly entertain the thought
as a fear, though it is undoubtedly true that a
majority of their leading statesmen and editors
do in their hearts believe, and will with their
mouths confess, their fearful expectation that
England will soon be face to face with the
gravest peril that has threatened it since the
Spanish Armada sailed from Corunna. At
this point I only say that the minds of all
Englishmen are full of the thought. Some
deride it, but it is there; it lives with them,
from week to week, by day and by night.
It would be merely blindness not to see that,
given this state of mind, at any moment there
may be spoken some ambiguous word which,
harmless in a normal time, could, to a national
sensitiveness so abnormal, have but one mean-
ing— an unfriendly one. Or an incident;
there may be at any moment a Dogger Bank,
a Fashoda, a Casabianca episode; an Ems
or a Kruger dispatch; a Maine accident. No
one who knows the nervous temper of Britain
to-day can hope that an explosion could be
avoided.
THE STRAIN GROWING INTOLERABLE
Or, if the accident fails to come, if the ten-
sion is unbroken, must it not in time become
itself intolerable — intolerable to England,
and, in all reason, intolerable? The burden
imposed by the effort to keep their place in
indisputable command of the sea is heavier
than the sons of Drake and Nelson can bear.
They have already been forced practically to
abandon the two-Power standard; they have
rendered their own great fleets of old-fashioned
vessels useless, for they have taught the other
nations how to build warships that can blow
them out of the water. England . finds it
necessary now to build a new navy, every
vessel of which costs $10,000,000. It has
four in commission, four more completing;
it has planned for sixteen within three
years; they alone will cost $160,000,000.
To man and keep them in commission, and
to back them with cruisers of the new Invin-
cible type, with destroyers and submarines —
who can estimate the money required for a
navy such as this? And this is not adequate.
"^ GERMANY^ ~~" ~~ GREAT BRITAIN
This sketch represents the respective numbers of German and British
Dreadnoughts and super-Dreadnoughls afloat and expected to be afloat,
at the close ot the years named. This is based on official statements.
Last year Germany surprised the world by launching a ship the exist-
ence of which was not known
England has, it is true, two years' start, but
the Teutonic Power is swiftly catching up.
The accompanying diagrams faithfully por-
tray a situation that will amaze all who have
not kept tally of the work of the German ship-
yards. It is true that in battleships and
1908
r???x?>m
1909
i'.'.'.fi^
GERMANY GREAT BRITAIN
This sketch represents the German and British Dreadnoughts com-
pleted and expected to be completed, In the years named. This is the
calculation of Brassey's, the chief English naval authority
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT?
12583
cruisers of the pre-Dreadnought and pre-
Invincible type, England is and will remain
vastly the superior; in total naval tonnage
it is likewise and will remain far ahead. But
Germany, which in 1907 had not a single new
type battleship to match against England's
four Dreadnoughts, has within the two years
launched seven {Nassau, Westfalen, Posen,
Rheinland, Oldenburg, Siegfried, and Beowulf,
which last named should be in the water by the
time this article is in print) and has three more
(Frithjof, Heimdall, Hildebrand) on the way.
Meanwhile, England has launched four more
_ _ 190_9
to . %£-:■-;.,-;.;; — psa^gg^^
191_0
GERMANY GREAT BRITAIN
This sketch represents the German and British Cruiser-Battleships of
the Invincible type, completed and expected to be completed, by the end of
the years named. This is Brassey's calculation
— its lead of four ships has in two years been
reduced to a lead of one.
The expectation set up by their respective
naval programmes is that at the close of next
year there will be afloat ten German against
twelve British Dreadnoughts. But it may be
remembered that last year the British First
Lord of the Admiralty astonished the nation
by confessing that Germany had launched a
battleship for which no provision had appeared
in the German naval estimates, and of the
existence of which the British Government was
in ignorance. This illustrates the swiftness
and secrecy with which Germans are building,
and affords ground for the English suspicion
that the full extent of the German programme
is not revealed. There has suddenly burst
into activity on the German coast such ship-
building yards as the imperial ones at Wil-
helmshaven (swiftly improved till it is now
in capacity second in the world), at Kiel, and
Danzig; such private establishments as the
Germania works at Kiel, which can build
four great ships at once, the Weser works at
Bremen, with capacity for five ships at a
time, the Vulkan works at Hamburg and at
Stettin.
The case has even graver aspects. The
celerity with which the German yards are
working is such that by the close of 1910 they
will have completed the seven more dreadful
Dreadnoughts named above. By that time
Great Britain will have in commission the
following ships of the new battle type: Dread-
nought, Bellerophon, Temeraire, Superb, Col-
lingwood, St. Vincent, Vanguard — seven.
The moment is one to which informed
Englishmen look forward with apprehension.
Again: last year England possessed three
cruiser-battleships of the revolutionary Invin-
cible type; Germany none. Next year Eng-
land will still have three; Germany two.
In 191 2 England will have another, making
four in all; Germany will then have four.
What we have here is already a kind of war-
fare, a tacens beUum. Every one of these
naval monsters, though it has never fired a
shot, has already damaged the nation in sus-
picion of which it was built — it has shed the
blood of that nation's taxpayers, and shed it
copiously. Germany can stand it, perhaps,
with complacency, for it is having the best of
the duel. But imagine the emotions with
which the English must begin to realize that
the enormous expenditure which they are
making cannot ensure them the command
of the sea! Can anything be more certain
than that England will repeat as a demand,
what it proposed as a suggestion at the Second
Hague Conference of 1907 — that the Powers
agree to limit their naval armaments?
Or anything more sure than that Germany
will reject that demand? When Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman submitted his proposal
in 1907, Germany not only refused to discuss
it, but refused to enter the Conference if it
were put on the calendar. When Kaiser and
King met at Cronstadt in the autumn of 1908,
and again when the King was at Berlin last
spring, the London papers were full of rumors
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT ?
that an agreement had been reached under
which Germany promised to slacken its naval
energy. A storm of protest and denial broke
out in Germany, and an official statement
was issued declaring that the German Govern-
ment regarded its naval plans as a domestic
matter which could not be discussed with
another Power.
Disappointed at The Hague, at Cronstadt,
and at Berlin, the English may still a little
longer hope, but when it is apparent, as it
soon must be, that .the day of the death of
assured English naval supremacy is definitely
in sight — let who can imagine the rage and
terror of England.
Great Britain must, moreover, take account
of Austria with four Dreadnoughts building,
AREA OF ACTION OF A ZEPPELIN AIRSHIP, BASED ON
PAST PERFORMANCES. LAST MAY THE "ZEPPELIN H"
TRAVELLED AS FAR AS FROM COLOGNE TO THE EDGE
OF THE CIRCLE AND BACK
and Italy with four more. That means that a
third or a half of the British navy must be sent
back to the Mediterranean, to guard the road
to India. Of its allies, Russia is contemptible
from the standpoint of sea-power; and France,
with monstrous scandals revealing corrupt
construction and demoralized and disloyal per-
sonnel, has fallen to a position about equal to
that of Spain in 1896. In the last year, Japan
has fallen from fourth to fifth place among the
naval Powers; on its known programme, it
will soon be sixth, Italy going ahead.
And it is less than a twelve-month since
Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, England's
highest-ranking and most-trusted naval officer,
exposed startling shortcomings in the British
fleet, declaring that its boasted efficiency was
a myth. He was forced to resign for his
candor. Reform was immediately initiated,
and may by now be thorough, but remembrance
of the revelations of last spring is still dis-
quieting to England's friends.
To a mind convinced that Germany's naval
activity is aimed at England, the island king-
dom's position must seem critical indeed; it
is swiftly becoming desperate. England has,
of course, no defense except its navy. Against
the Kaiser's army of 600,000 active garrisoned
troops, and his reserve of 1,300,000 trained
soldiers, England is able to oppose 265,000
men — 140,000 of whom are abroad. Britain
has nothing to correspond to the Continental
"reserve." The lately-organized "territorials"
are as yet about as terrible a force as the " boy
scouts" and "girl scouts" who take Saturday
half-holidays on Hampstead Heath. To talk
of resisting invasion is ridiculous. England can
never allow a hostile force to land on its soil.
*To add to anxiety, there is to-day housed in
Cologne a monster airship which has already
(May, 1909) made a journey, that, had it
been directed toward the northwest, would
have carried it not merely to London, but
across the most densely-peopled part of Britain
all the way to Liverpool, a journey the course
of which it could have plotted on the surface
of England with a path of ruin. Germans
have lately subscribed a million and a half
dollars for an airship building plant at Fried-
richshafen. There will be certainly ten Zep-
pelins in commission within twelve months.
No gun exists that can be depended on to hit
them. Military authorities believe that no
defense against them can be devised. Out-
side Germany and France, the world has not
come to an understanding of the diabolical
possibilities of this new engine of invasion.
The English are beginning to understand.
When they do so fully, they will indeed know
what panic means. When they do under-
stand, such a fright as that caused by the
phantom airship, that Flying Dutchman of
the sky which for a week last summer mystified
the land — such a practical joke as that might
easily rouse the nation to a frenzied demand
for swift launching of the North Sea fleet
against the dreaded foe.
Consider the position: England lies at the
mercy of a German army, should one ever
reach its shores. It has relied for generations
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ENGLAND AND GERMANY: WILL THEY FIGHT ?
12585
on its navy — its boast and pride; a navy so
great that it was deemed that no combina-
tion of two Powers could send fleets to face
it Suddenly it sees springing into existence,
in the shipyards of the nation whose intentions
it particularly fears, the elements of a German
fleet which threatens to be, in a year or two,
alone, a match for its own. Simultaneously
it observes Italy and Austria, nations hereto-
fore altogether without naval ambitions, pre-
paring to build powerful fleets. It is pre-
cisely as if Germany had said to its allies : " We
are strong enough in land forces; I have army
enough fpr all our purposes. What we need
is battleships. Build you battleships, also.
Don't bother about your armies. I will see
to all that.'9 Looking about at its own allies
and friends, England finds them losing ground
on the water (to employ an Irishism), as fast
as its possible foes are gaining it.
Is this a position in which a proud people
can quietly acquiesce? The British character
has betrayed some new qualities lately — the
quality of nervousness, for instance — but I
mistake if it will see the national glory depart
without an effort to retain it.
ENGLAND SUBCONSCIOUSLY RESOLVED
The considerations cited above do not imply
that Germany really has designs against Great
Britain. It is impossible to see what the
northern neighbor could hope to gain by battle
more than it is already gaining in peaceful
competition. I have not found — one can
only submit his personal observations on such
a subject — I have not found Germans want-
ing to fight Englishmen, or especially disliking
them, or fearing their rivalry, or expecting
any particular advantage even out of a victory
over them. To tell the truth, Germans hold
Englishmen in something which one dislikes
to call by so offensive a name as contempt.
They do not even discuss the deterioration of
English efficiency and influence; they assume
it as a thing indisputable. Germans would
be fools (and fools they are not) to fail to
recognize the superiority to-day of their indus-
trial and commercial situation. Perhaps they
exaggerate it; at all events they do not lie
awake nights worried by British competition.
Politically, they regard England as already
out of business. The ruling spirit of the
German Foreign Office genuinely believes
that in allying itself with Japan, Great Britain
put itself outside the programme of the White
Powers; that Lord Landsdowne's blunder
destroyed the authority of Great Britain in
Europe. The amiable Sir Edward Grey is
hardly regarded abroad as he has been at
home, or was, until the rout of British diplo-
macy in the Balkan crisis last spring, when the
two Kaisers snapped their fingers at London's
frenzied protests, and the Tsar (I happen to
know that it was the Tsar personally who
forced his ministers to the step) chose to sub-
mit to Teutonic advice rather than accept
English aid. The fall, before the Kaiser's
frown, of Delcass£, the French minister who
brought about the entente cordiale with Great
Britain, showed how impotent the island nation
has grown in the councils even of allied Powers.
It is, I believe, a profound, even a childish,
error to fear that Germany cherishes against
its island neighbor any design more sinister
than defeat in the peaceful ways of trade. The
November speech of Count Bernstorff was a
complete answer to those who charge the
Germans with vast colonial ambitions; Ger-
many is finding too rich reward in the cultiva-
tion of its own garden, the natural expansion
of its home industries, and the peaceful con-
quest of foreign markets.
But it is not an error to fear that Eng-
land has subconsciously resolved that this
peaceful expansion of German influence
must be checked, if war will check it. Ger-
many's waxing means England's waning. The
British have two sound grievances against the
Kaiser's people: one commercial, the other
political. The first was neatly summarized
by a German diplomat who picked up a little
object, perhaps a paper-knife, from a table
in a London drawing room. Stamped upon
it were the letters "M. I. G." "There,"
he commented, "is the Briton's grievance
against us — too many things are 'Made in
Germany.' "
The Briton has another grievance: Since
the day of Wolsey, it has been a fixed principle
of England's diplomacy to single out and op-
pose the Power at the moment paramount
on the Continent. For years it was the sworn
enemy of France — till France lost its leading
position. When Russia threatened to domi-
nate Europe, it joined the "infidel enemy" of
Russia. Only when the Hyperboreans were
humiliated by Japan did it withdraw its hatred
— to turn it upon Germany, now swiftly rising
to dominance. Scrutinize British diplomacy,
and you will find that always England is at
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12586
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
work against the Power paramount on the
mainland. It is the instinct of self-preservation
that teaches England that it cannot safely
permit the integration of Continental Europe.
Now, not since the triumphs of Napoleon has
that been so threatened as it is to-day. The
rise of the Deutsche Reich is the spectacular
phenomenon of modern history.
These are the things that underlie England's
belief in the inevitability of war, the true, half-
unconscious motives of its hatred and its fear.
England does not in its heart 0} hearts believe its
own talk of Germany s warlike intentions. But
it shivers with a waking consciousness 0} its own.
Such is the essential, historic ground upon
which the mighty gladiators will sooner or later
close in inevitable combat. The immediate
dangers of the situation are primarily from
the English side, and may be scientifically
stated as consisting in:
The liability of an explosion released by
some accident acting on a national mind which
has excited itself to a pathological point; or
The more rational realization by a deterio-
rating people of the necessity of an early and a
swift effort to regain a prestige which is slip-
ping from them.
A secondary danger threatens from the Ger-
man side, and lies in the possibility that a
nation with originally pacific intentions may
be goaded to attack, by the conviction that
it is itself about to be attacked.
For an immense advantage will lie with the
Power which launches the first blow. It is
knowledge of this fact that multiplies many
times the likelihood of hostilities: mutual
suspicion which cannot afford to await verifi-
cation will urge to prior action; England and
Germany will each be impelled to strike, even
without cause, by the conviction that the other
is preparing to strike. It is conceivable that
an unadvertised descent by the North Sea Fleet,
now under the command of Sir William May,
might, between a sun's rising and setting, strike
Germany's arm powerless for offense; equally
conceivable that a foggy night's work by trans-
ports or a swift journey by a Zeppelin might lay
London at the mercy of its foe. It is almost
quite certain that the first half of the conflict,
the half which all the rest of it would be only
a struggle to atone for, would be a bolt out of
the darkness on a surprised enemy — a mere
moment of agony while the world's heart
stopped beating. Then might follow — but who
dare prophesy the course of an epic conflict ?
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
VIII
A VISIT TO THE OLD HOME
BY
ALEXANDER IRVINE
MY FATHER had been begging me for
years to come home to Ireland and
say good-bye to him; so, in 1901, 1
made the journey.
I hadn't been in the old home long before
the alley was filled with neighbors, curious to
have a look at "ould Jamie's son who was a
clargymaan." I went to the door and shook
hands with everybody in the hope that they
would go away and leave me with my own.
But nobody moved. They stood and stared
for several hours. " 'Deed I mind ye fine
when ye weren't th' height av a creepie!"
said one woman, who was astounded that I
couldn't call her by name.
"Aye," said another, " 'deed ye were
fond o' th' Bible, an' no wundther yer a
clargymaan!"
A dozen old women "minded" as many
different things of my childhood. I finally
dismissed them with this phrase, as I dropped
easily into the vernacular: "Shure, we'd invite
ye all t' tay, but there's only three cups in the
house!"
My sister Mary and her four children lived
with my father. We shut and barred the door
when the neighbors left and sat down to "tay,"
which consisted of potatoes and buttermilk.
Mary had been faying to improve on the old
days, but I interposed; and together we went
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FROM THE BOTTOM UP
12587
through the old regime. Father took the pot
of potatoes to the old shoemaker's tub in which
he used to steep the leather. There he drained
them — then put them on the fire for a minute
to allow the steam to escape.
"I'm going to 'kep' them," I said, and they
both laughed.
"Oh, heavens, don't!" he said; "shure they
don't *kep' pirtas in America."
"I'm not in America now," I answered. I
circled as much of the little bare table as I
could with my arms to keep the potatoes from
rolling off. He dumped them in a heap in the
centre; they rolled up against my arms and
breast and I pushed them back. Mary cleared
a space for a small pile of salt and the butter-
milk bowls.
"We'll haave a blessin' by a rale ministher
th' night," Mary said.
"Oh, yis, that's thrue enough," my father
said, "but Alec minds th' time whin it was
blessin' enough to hev th' Murphies — don't
ye, boy?"
After "tay" I tacked a newspaper over the
lower part of the window, my father lit the
candle, Mary put a few turf on the fire, and
we sat as we used to sit so many years ago.
My father was so deaf that I had to shout to
make him hear, and nearly everything that I
said could be heard by the neighbors in the
alley, many of whom sat around the door to
hear whatever they could of the story of
the magic land beyond the sea.
The old man sighed often and occasionally
there were tears in Mary's eyes; and there
were times when the past surged through my
mind with such vividness that I could only
look vacantly into the white flame of the peat
fire. Once, after a long silence, my father
spoke — his voice trembling: "Oh," he said,
"if she cud just have weathered through till
this day!"
"Aye," Mary said, "but how do ye know
she isn't jist around here somewhere, any-
way?"
"Aye," the old man said as he nodded his
head, " 'deed that's thrue for you, Mary, she
may!" He took his black cutty pipe out of
his mouth and gazed at me for a moment
"What d'ye mind best about her?"
"I mind a saying she had that has gone
through life with me."
"'Ivery day makes its own throuble?'"
"No, not that; something better. She used
to say so often, 'It's nice to be nice.' "
"Aye, I mind that," he said.
"Then," I continued, "on Sundays when
she was dressed and her nice tallied cap on her
head, I thought she was the purtiest woman
I ever saw!"
"'Deed, maan, she was that!"
When bedtime came I took a small lap-robe
from my suit-case — spread it on the hard mud
floor, rolled some other clothes as a pillow,
and lay down to rest. Sleep came slowly, but
I was not alone; for around me were the forms
and faces of other days.
The next day I visited the scene of my boy-
hood's vision — I went through the woods
where I had my first full meal. I visited the
old church; but the good Rector was gathered
to his fathers. It was all a day-dream; it was
like going back to a former incarnation. Along
the road on my way home I discovered the most
intimate friend of my boyhood — the boy
with whom I had gathered faggots, played
"shinny," and gone bird-nesting. He was
"nappin"' stones. He did not recognize my
voice but his curiosity made him throw down
his hammer, take off the glasses that protected
his eyes, and stare at me. Then he knew me.
"Maan, yer changed," he said, "aren't
you?"
"And you?"
" Och, shure, I'm th' same ould sixpence!"
"Except that you're older!" There was a
look of disappointment on his face.
"Maan," he said, "ye talk like quality —
d'ye live among thim?"
I explained something of my changed life;
I told of my work and what I had tried to do
and I closed with an account of the vision in
the fields not far from were we sat.
"Aye," he would say occasionally, "aye,
'deed it's quare how things turn out."
When I ended the story of the vision he said:
"Ye haaven't forgot how t' tell a feery story
— ye wor good at that!"
"Bob" hadn't read a book or a newspaper
in all those years. He got his news from the
men who stopped at his stone-pile to light their
pipes; what he didn't get there he got at the
cobbler's while his brogues were being patched,
or at the barber's when he went for his weekly
shave. We talked each other out in half an
hour. A wide gulf was between us: it was a
gulf in the realm of mind.
The following Sunday I told my father we
were going to church.
"Not me!" he said.
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HAPPY HUMANITY
"Oh, yes," I coaxed; "just this once with
me.
"What th' divil's the use whin I haave a
praycher tJ m'silf."
"I am to be the preacher at the church."
"Och, but that's a horse ov another color,
bedad. Shure thin I'll go."
When my father saw me in a Geneva gown,
his eyes were filled with tears.
He never heard a word of the sermon, but
as we emerged from the church into the street
he put his arms around my neck and, kissing
me, said:
"Och, boy, if God wud only take me now
I'd be happy!"
Though he was very feeble, I took him to
Scotland with me to visit my brothers and
asters; and there I left him. As the hour of
farewell drew near he wanted to have me
alone, all to himself.
"Ye couldn't stay at home awhile? Shure
I'll be goin' in a month or two."
"Ah, that's impossible, father." He hung
his head.
"D'ye believe I'll know her whin I go?
God wudn't shut me out from her for th' things
I've done "
"Of course He won't."
"He wudn't be so d — n niggardly, wud
He?"
"Never!"
He fondled my hands as if I were a child.
The hour drew nigher. He bad so many
questions to ask, but the inevitableness of the
situation struck him dumb. We were on the
platform; and the train was about to move
out. I made a motion; he gripped me tightly,
whispering in my ear:
"Ask God wunst in a while to let me be
with yer mother — will ye, boy?"
HAPPY HUMANITY
THE STORY OF A COOPERATIVE EXPERIMENT IN HOLLAND THAT FAILED BECAUSE
THE CLASS-HATRED OF ITS BENEFICIARIES EXCLUDED PROPER LEADERSHIP
BY
FREDERIK VAN EEDEN
THE first attempt to increase human
happiness, into which my natural in-
clination led me, was that of amusing
other people and myself by writing littie
plays, verses, and essays. But while nursing
a school friend who died from tuberculosis,
I found that amusement alone would not do.
In Holland, to be an author or a poet was
not considered a real profession, nor an honor-
able and sufficient way of making a living.
However distinct my calling and my talent
may have been, none of my acquaintances —
and I myself least of all — ever thought of me
as a professional poet. It became more and
more clear to me that mankind wanted also
some more tangible and practical help — so I
became a doctor of medicine. I need not be
sorry for this. It gave me the contact with
actual life which most poets lack, to the detri-
ment of their art.
In the art of healing, I soon found that undue
attention was given to the subordinate part
of the human being, the physical, bodily part
— while the immense importance and power
of the so-called psychical part, the soul, was
neglected.
This conviction made me reverse — so to
say — the tactics of the art of healing. Fol-
lowing up the discoveries of some scientific
Frenchmen, I initiated, with a colleague of
mine, the novel method of healing known
as psycho-therapy, called so by us for the
first time.
In 1895, after eight years' practice, I began
to feel dissatisfied with my work. Yet I was
very successful in my practice, and our clinic
in Amsterdam was steadily prospering, and is
until this day. The rhymes and stories con-
tinued to come, in leisure hours — and yet
this seemed not enough as my contribution to
the advent of Happy Humanicy.
I realized that humanity was very far from
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HAPPY HUMANITY
12589
happiness, indeed. I found misery every-
where — even where it was supposed not to be,
among the fortunate, the wealthy. They were
envied by the poor, and yet their happiness was
of a very low and objectionable sort. They
could eat big dinners, live in fine houses, enter-
tain guests, travel, buy works of art — and
yet they lacked real satisfaction. They lacked
the highest spiritual joys — enthusiasm, ele-
vation, freedom of mind, wisdom — and they
generally lacked health — health physical and
psychical.
They came to me to be treated. I could
temporarily alleviate their troubles, but I
could not help them permanently. Their
mode of life was in the way. They lived the
unnatural, unhealthful, despicable life of idle,
useless people. They were parasites on the
tree of humanity, sucking the sap out of it and
not thriving on it themselves, making the tree
wither and turning its healthy juice into poison.
At that time I was impressed by another
alarming symptom of social disease — the
unemployed. The tremendous absurdity of
the fact that able, healthy people were starv-
ing for want of work, while idle, useless people
were growing sick by too much leisure and
luxury and too little labor — this struck me
like a blow in the face. It has struck many
people before and later; but the blow seems
more to stun than to awaken them.
I became wide awake to this fact of enor-
mous importance, that at least 90 per cent, of
the misery of mankind is not necessary. It is
only the result of bad order, bad organization,
inertia, laxity, indifference.
I was not indifferent, and resolved not to be
lax, but to use all the strength that I could dis-
pose of. I began by making a proposition
to my countrymen that they should establish
farms, owned and supported by the state, where
every man out of work should be able to find
useful employment, under good supervision
and management. They should produce prin-
cipally those goods that they could use them-
selves, and work more for their own consump-
tion than for the market, forming in this way
a sort of productive cooperation. Of course,
I foresaw that this would imply an annual
deficit, to be paid by the Government, but I
considered that this money would be well
spent. My proposition compared fairly well
with that made by William Thompson in
1830, though at that time I had never heard
his name.
Mr. Thompson's book, "Practical Direc-
tions for the Needy and Economical Estab-
lishment of Communities on the Principles of
Mutual Cooperation," is still worth reading;
it is the most sensible and natural answer of
an unsophisticated, undogmatic mind to the
alarming cry of the social miseries. It is full
of good, even practical sen§e. When Thomp-
son died, he left all his property in the hands
of aboard of trustees in order that they should
try a practical experiment with it according
to his views. But Thompson's relatives inter-
fered and started a law- suit, which lasted for
seventeen years, and by that time all the
money was gone. Moral: Don't try experi-
ments after your death, when relations and
lawyers are still alive.
We know that several more or less similar
experiments have failed. But we know, all of
us, that the present evils of society are not
necessary and could be mended. We know
that, just as certainly as we know that the
North Pole exists and can %e reached. What
then can be an excuse 'for stopping experi-
ments so long as the goal is not attained ? Has
failure ever been proof of impossibility? Was
success not always preceded by failure ?t
It will not be astonishing to hear that my
most violent opponents were those -who called
themselves Socialists. We had at that time
two kinds of them, the Social Democrats and
the Anarchists. The first wanted to get hold
of the Government and then change every-
thing for the better simply by legislation.
The anarchists despised and condemned all
sorts of legislation, and hoped to cure society
by abolishing all rules and rulers, so that every-
thing would turn right by individual sense of
justice and equity.
Curing society by legislation seemed to me
like changing the wind by turning the weather-
cock. Laws are the fixation and confirmation
of customs; they may impose the good cus-
toms of a part of society on the whole body of
it, but they can never, or very rarely, start
the initial wave of a deep, new current.
This is what I realized after the failure
of my writings to make an impression. Then
I addressed myself to the laboring classes, who
seemed to be more conscious of, and who were
the worst sufferers under, the social disorder.
They were, moreover, used to work and hard-
ships, and I expected more efficiency in the
sober worker than in the spoiled parasite.
I went around my country and spoke to
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HAPPY HUMANITY
the workmen, telling them as plainly and
clearly as I could that if they were aware that
a small minority of idle rich were living at
their expense, cheating them out of the prod-
uct of their labor, there could be only one very
simple remedy. They must unite, workers
with workers, manual and intellectual, and
work only for those thai worked for them,
excluding thereby the drones and the parasites.
No envy, no hatred, no class-feeling or
class struggle would be of any use, I said. I
had found that rich people who did not work
but lived at the expense of others were not really
and thoroughly happy, but were sometimes
more to be pitied than the deceived worker.
If they really subsisted on other men's labor,
they would, of course, starve and be left in the
cold as soon as these laborers, manual or intel-
lectual, stopped working for them. That
would only serve them right.
When I told this, it seemed to me that this
would appeal to any normal mind of average
understanding. And I hoped to steer clear
of Socialistic dehominations, dogmas, and
fanaticisms. The persistent trouble, in all
my experiments, has been the struggle with
creeds and doctrines.
In X898, I began to feel that my theories
would be valueless unless tested by practice.
Though I was not at all a rich man, and had to
live principally on what I earned as a doctor
and a writer, I saw my chance of trying on a
small scale an interesting and instructive
experiment.
I bought, with the help of a friend — who
left me alone very soon afterward — about
thirty acres, and tried to get a group of people
together who would stand by me in an effort
to do away with the iniquity in our way of
living.
My reasoning was thus: It is impossible for
any man in our present society to give up all
unfair means of getting his subsistence. He
is dependent, in a thousand trifles, on the
work of others. He can not free himself
entirely from the intricate issue of social insti-
tutions and activities. The only way for him
to keep entirely free from direct or indirect
dishonesty would be to live, like Robinson
Crusoe, on his own patch of land, by the
work of his own hands. This was done, so
far as I knew, by only one man — David
Henry Thoreau. And in honor of his high-
minded example I called my place "Walden."
But even Thoreau had to give up his heroic
effort, and I did not at all agree with his con-
tempt of machinery and modern industry.
On the contrary, I wished to try, by bringing
together several people with the same desire
for justice as Thoreau had, to alleviate the
hardships of a sober life and to start, on a
small scale, a newer, better organization.
It would be, of course, no complete change,
but a transitional form, going as for as our per-
sonal endeavors would enable us. We would
lessen the burden of social guilt by living as
plainly and soberly as possible, and by try-
ing to produce as much as we could of the
necessities of life.
We were to have the soil in common, to pro-
duce only useful goods that we could con-
sume ourselves, to sell in the market what we
could not .use, and live as simply as we could.
My hope was that others would follow our
example, and that mutual cooperation would
enable us to get more comfort, better produc-
tion, and a larger market among our fellow-
workers.
I confess that, having been a poet and a
doctor thus far, without any business experi-
ence, my experiment was a rather clumsy
one, especially the selection of the first workers.
I accepted several people who proved to be
quite useless after a short time. There came
to me a crowd of those well-meaning but
absolutely incapable idealists, sentimaitalists,
and semi-cranks, who usually form these littie
groups. I did not see then, as I do now, the
harm of allowing them to join on trial. Their
impractical ideas spoiled all the work and kept
the good workers away. Some of them were
absolutely corrupt, selfish idlers, who simply
wanted to have a good time at my expense.
There was a big house on the place, where
one or two families and the unmarried people
could live. Moreover, we built some six or
seven smaller houses for the married people.
Our principle product was, in the beginning,
vegetables. We also baked, in a very primi-
tive oven, a pure kind of wheat-bread, which
proved to be excellent and was soon in demand
in the near village of Bussum. Gradually we
extended the bakery, and it grew very quicky
into a fairly prosperous business which could
support the whole colony. We began by giving
wages on a communistic basis — not accord-
ing to the work done but according to the needs
of the worker and his family. This was kept
up for several years, but it proved to be unsatis-
factory. The bakers complained that the
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HAPPY HUMANITY
12591
gardeners reduced their income by their
inefficiency. We had to separate the two
accounts and pay each man in his own trade
what the sale of the goods warranted.
It was several years before the colony was
self-supporting. We had endless troubles and
quarrels, most of them caused by the doc-
trinaires, who objected to all business methods
as being "capitalistic," and who used all the
power of insinuation and slander when I had
to compel them to leave.
As an experiment it was very instructive, and
it cured many a hot-headed idealist of his
illusions about an immediate democratic or
anarchistic regime. In fact, it very soon became
clear to me that democracy and common
ownership could not be realized at once, but
would have to be learned by a long, severe,
and careful education.
The whole place, being considered as com-
mon property — though still practically my
own — was badly neglected; everybody left
the care to somebody else, and put the blame
on the others. I now saw and could demon-
strate plainly that good management is wanted
even among those who pretend to be Socialists
and upholders of liberty and democracy. Their
idea of liberty amounted very often to "doing
as they pleased," which was not always as it
pleased others.
I saw that they needed authority; that they
had not yet become of age in the full human
sense. They lacked the feeling of respon-
sibility, the true knowledge of their own capa-
bilities, and the full self-possession that
entitles men to the rights of true liberty. In
order to keep the experiment going, I had to
use my own authority, with the natural result
that I was called a tyrant and a despot
In all this, however, there was no real dan-
ger. Our deficit did not amount to more
than what I could supply by my literary work.
As I had kept the title in my own hands,
I could gradually supplant the undesirable
workers by better ones. This was, of course,
called a violation of the democratic constitu-
tion, but, as I was paying the deficit, all were
aware that I had a certain right to do this. In
1905, after three or four difficult years, things
began to brighten up, and we commenced to
make profits, especially through the bakery.
But in the meanwhile I had been working
along other lines and began to navigate more
dangerous waters. It was never my aim to
create only a litde idyllic group in a corrupt
world. If the experiment would not spread
and be universally imitated, I would consider
it a failure. So I started a company, called
"The Society for the Common Ownership of
the Soil," with the object of forming more
groups like Walden, either agricultural or indus-
trial, each working after its own best intuition
and cooperating by the interchange of prod-
ucts. Each group was to be quite free to
choose its own organization, with observance
of the general aim of the society, that is, the
exclusion of parasites, of commercial deceit,
and of exploitation of the workers.
I may point out here the absurdity of the
often-heard contention that this aim cannot
be realized, that it demands a perfection of
human nature which has not yet been reached.
This contention can only be caused by an
erroneous conception of the true aim. People
who say this have in their minds something
like a final perfection of organization, a kind of
ideal anarchy wherein everybody knows his
own place and power, and produces the highest
efficiency and order without being driven to it
by authority. This, of course, is beyond
human nature as we know it now, though no
one can say what centuries of experiment and
education may do. What we need now is only
the exclusion of a common abuse of power.
In order to do this, we need not abolish
authority and good management. And who
could have a sound argument for the conten-
tion that an organization based on the prin-
ciples of just rewards for labor, on common
ownership of the sources of wealth, and on
the exclusion of idleness, cannot be realized
under strict authority, severe business-like
methods, and excellent management?
This is the main point at issue. In my view,
there is no excuse for the powerful members
of our society, be they political men and legis-
lators or well-meaning wealthy men, if they do
not proceed energetically in experimenting
until these worst flaws of our social organiza-
tion, these terrible scourges of mankind — para-
sitism, exploitation of the weak and poor,
commercial deceit, and high-paid idleness
— are abolished.
This "Society for the Common Ownership
of the Soil" is still in existence in Holland.
To it belong, perhaps, a dozen groups of
workers, either industrial or agricultural. They
try to combine their activity in the coopera-
tive way, but all of them suffer from the same
evil. They are constituted for the larger part
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HAPPY HUMANITY
by what are called "Socialists," who are more
or less dogmatic. They have no good man-
agement because they can not find good mana-
gers; if they could, they would perhaps not
obey them. Good managers are not to be
found among the men of their creed. Besides,
good managers want good salaries, and this is
against Socialistic principles once more. It is
"capitalistic." So their groups are still small,
powerless concerns, having no social import-
ance, and kept afloat with great difficulty.
Seeing' this, I wanted to take another course,
in order tQ proceed more rapidly. In 1903
an opportunity offered itself. I had then
taken an active part in the great railroad
strike, which ended in a complete disaster.
I had told the strikers that I did not believe
in the possibility of a thorough reorganization
of society by means of strikes, but that I had
"joined them because their cause seemed just.
After the defeat, about 2,000 families were
locked out; I felt my responsibility and tried
to raise money for relief of the women and
children. I organized a group of locked-out
laborers and had them collect small weekly
sums from the workmen who could spare a
few cents. We divided Amsterdam into five
districts. I addressed the people in each dis-
trict and the collectors soon brought in a few
hundred dollars every week. This was not
much, but it was at least something.
After some months I resolved to use part of
the collected money to buy goods in a cooper-
ative way. Each contributor received a book-
let and special stamps with my signature to
the amount of the sum given. I rented a shop,
filled it with household goods; and when a con-
tributor had his booklet filled with stamps
to the amount of two dollars or more, he was
allowed to change it for some household article.
In this cooperation I used the locked-outs as
collectors, shopkeepers, delivery men, and so on.
This plan worked so well that I had at the
end of the first year more than 40,000 contrib-
utors, a weekly collection of about $2,000, and
200 employees in the business. We provided
the customers with clothing, household articles,
fuel, and other necessities. My idea was to
combine with this the agricultural and indus-
trial production of Walden, and to find thus a
larger market for our bread and vegetables.
In addition to this, I bought a dairy farm
with some sixty acres of pasture land, hoping
to provide my 40,000 customers with butter
and milk.
All this was sound and sensible, and if con-
ducted on safe business lines it would surely
have succeeded. But here the difficulties
began. In each branch of this cooperation I
wanted an expert manager, but I had only
locked-out railroad men, engineers, and con-
ductors. I knew that this would lead to a
deficit, and I was prepared to pay it for one
year; but I resolved to get the right managers
in the meanwhile.
Then my employees began to obstruct me
in my endeavors to help them. They called
themselves Socialists, and were opposed to all
" outsiders.' ' They had been educated in the
notion of "class-war," and this notion proved
to be their own undoing. Any manager who
was more or less a gentleman, a "bour-
geois," was considered as a wolf in sheep's
clothing. The employees all wanted the same
salary, whatever work they did, and the salary
that a concern that was not even self-support-
ing could afford to pay did not attract first-
rate managers.
In some respects, these people showed
admirable qualities. For instance, they all
voted for reduction of their salary when I told
them that they had to choose between that
and reduction of the number of employees.
On the other hand, they were obstinate in
their opposition to "outsiders." When I had
succeeded in getting a capable man — and I
found more than one willing to work for a
lower price than he could get in the ordinary
labor market — the other employees began a
regular war of obstruction against him until he
gave up the job in despair. These strikers used
their old strike tactics against me, who worked
only for their good. This was the result of
the teachings of the class-war Socialists.
I struggled for three years, but of course the
customers were illy served and the credit of
the whole enterprise was badly shaken. The
second year gave another deficit, though a
much smaller one. Then a man came who
promised to set matters all right, and he
seemed to be the man to do it; but he proved
to be the cause of final ruin. More than one
shrewd business man made the same mistake
about that very man. He was young, ex-
tremely active, thoroughly honest, and sincere.
But he was reckless and over-confident in
himself and some glib fellows who made easy
sport of him.
Trusting to his ability, I retired for a few
weeks' vacation in Germany, devoting my-
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HAPPY HUMANITY
1*593
self to literary work. When I came back,
with a finished drama in my pocket, I saw at
once that he had struck the final blow and that
the end was near. My new general manager,
instead of carefully limiting the business until
the leaks were stopped, had extended it in a
most reckless way, establishing a new store-
house and buying out another firm, which had
started a similar organization.
This competitive firm was started a year
before by. some people who had been in our
own concern, but had been obliged to leave.
They knew our method and organization, and
imitated it with some apparent success. As
a matter of fact, their structure was still less
solid than ours. Not trusting my own experi-
ence as a business man, I had refused the
temptation to buy up other firms, though I had
several offers, and I had warned my new gen-
eral-manager. But he was exuberant when
our rivals came to him and said that they
wanted to surrender, as they felt they could not
fight him. Very much flattered, he agreed
to conditions which later turned out to be a
swindle.
Within six months of the installation of the
new management, the debts of the firm had
grown from $20,000 to $100,000, and the
weekly contributions did not increase. To
raise capital under these circumstances was
out of the question, and payments were stopped.
In order to continue the sale of goods to the
poor people, who would have made a tre-
mendous rush to get back their small savings,
I induced a meeting of the big creditors to give
me a delay. They even consented to supply
a part of their account as new capital. I
myself ventured another $10,000 to save the
situation. I had just received some money
by a legacy.
But it was too late. In a few months
more bankruptcy was declared. The judges,
convinced of my disinterestedness, treated me
fairly and allowed a transaction which would
have seemed very suspicious in any other case.
The case was very difficult, as the 40,000 con-
tributors, who all had given -small sums in
advance, had to be considered as creditors.
Most of them were laborers, and to pay them
off with 30 per cent., like the big creditors,
would have caused something like an uproar,
and would have discredited me for ever. So
I was allowed to buy from the firm all the
stores and goods on my private name, prom-
ising to pay off the big creditors with 30 per
cent and the small contributors with 100 per
cent. Then the bankruptcy was raised.
This transaction cost me $100,000, but the
small holders were all paid off until the last
cent, and their confidence in me remained
unshaken. I sold the shops and goods to dif-
ferent people, and transferred the organization,
in the form of a savings-bank, to the young
general-manager, in whose honesty I had
always continued to believe. He is running
that business still, and after the severe lesson
which he had, at my cost, he now manages to
make it pay. The stores are still prosperous
in other hands, and without any cooperative
character. The lesson was not less severe to
me, as the sum I had to pay surpassed my
means by* more than half — and I, who never
had a debt worth mentioning in my life, will
be obliged to work very hard and live very
soberly if I see my debts paid off before I die.
The property of Walden became heavily
mortgaged in the course of this affair. It
never rains but it pours. An excellent manager
for the Walden plant, whom I had succeeded
in getting accepted by the colonists, took his
leave the next day after my situation had
become known. Then the colonists them-
selves began to make trouble. Out of my
legacy I had built a fine electric plant, pro-
viding the whole colony with light, which cost
me some $20,000. But the bakers for whom
I had built it secretly established a smaller
concern of their own in the village; they took
with them their savings, and, what was more
important, their customers, leaving in my
hands a costly installation without workmen
and without market. In this way the only
source of revenue which was left to me besides
my own labor was cut off. My short career as
a capitalist had lasted about nine months, and
I had to begin anew, with a considerable
account on the wrong side of my ledger.
All this was supremely unpleasant, especially
because it touched my nearest relatives, whom
I could not keep out of the trouble and
who were not consoled by my belief that
I had done something of importance and
instruction for the benefit of mankind. They
had to share my responsibility without shar-
ing my convictions.
Had I been a young man I would have con-
sidered it all as belonging to the necessary
vicissitudes and hardships of the struggle for
success. Many an experienced man of busi-
ness, when I told my story, has said, smiling:
Digitized by UOOQIC
"594
HAPPY HUMANITY
"Well, this is the usual apprenticeship, the
ordinary school we all had to pass before we
learned how to select and manage men, and to
make a business successful."
To me, devoted to art and science and
being beyond the middle of my life, it was
a different thing. Most of all, I was annoyed
by the attitude of the public who could not see,
of course, that all this misfortune had nothing
to do with the truth of my contentions, with
the possibility of the thing I had in mind.
On- the other hand, exactly because I was
not a business man but a man of science, and
because I felt conscious of the purity of my
aims, I found it all the easier to bear.
In my medical practice I often had occa-
sion to treat business men who were entirely
broken down by the same sort of misfortune.
Having worked strenuously for their own bene-
fit, a serious failure made them lose all interest
in life and see no other end but suicide. I
had known such cases, being sometimes unable
to keep them from the final act of despair, and
I had wondered how a man could want to die
in such an interesting position.
Far more interesting was this position to me,
who had never given much attention to the
financial part of life. It was all full of instruc-
tion, widening my views, testing my convictions,
but not shaking in the least my faith in the
ultimate success of future experiments.
The most wholesome and direct result of my
work was the impression it made on the labor-
ing class. Of course, the partisans of the
different Socialistic creeds believed their leaders
and put the blame on me. A good partisan
must be proof against facts and arguments,
however irrefutable. But the laborer of aver-
age common sense and independent judgment
now saw it demonstrated that in matters of
business — on which we all have to rely for
our subsistence — good intentions, honest
principles, and strenuous effort are not suffi-
cient. Minds of organizing power are wanted,
and they are not to be found among the labor-
ing class because the great demand for their
abilities makes them quickly rise above it,
and come to wealth and power.
The clear-minded laborer now saw the
stupid absurdity of the " class-hatred' ' which
excluded those powerful men whose capabili-
ties were absolutely needed to make a new
productive organization successful. He also
saw how absurd was the contention of those
idealists who supposed that by a general strike,
by abolishing all authority and all law, man-
kind as it is now could attain order and effi-
ciency by itself.
Of course,^ this had been said many times
before, but it had been said by more or less
interested people — by business men, politi-
cians, economists, all under suspicion of con-
servative or selfish tendencies. In my case
there could be no such suspicions. I had
given ample proof of my devotion to the cause
of the struggling workers. There never was
good reason to doubt my sincerity. So these
convictions, freely expressed by me as the
result of my personal experience — and pub-
lished in a small weekly paper originally
started by me — struck both laborers and
business men with force.
I agreed to the necessity of able manage-
ment, severe discipline, business-like methods,
but at the same time I did not deviate one
hair's-breadth from the indicated course, the
liberation of the oppressed poor, the abolish-
ment of the social abuses, the end of the empire
of rank plutocracy.
There appeared to me, however, no chance
to make another effort in Holland. All that
I could do there — and what I am actually
doing there now — is to keep Walden going,
under its heavy obligations, to reorganize it
under my personal ownership and direction
in order to satisfy my creditors.
But for the next experiment I looked toward
the great country of experiments, where free-
dom is in the making, where there is no lack
of energy, plenty of good-will and optimism,
and a great number of able, well-intentioned
men.
America, moreover, offers opportunities like
no other country in the world. Though an
organization of the kind I had in mind could
be carried through anywhere, if the right men
were found to do it, the chances of success
would be greatly increased if we could find
one of those favorable occasions where busi-
ness is known to prosper even in average hands.
So I came to America, and I felt that if
I could make my troubles and sorrows useful
and fruitful here, there would be no loss of
money nor of effort.
Thus far, America has not disappointed
me. I have found the opportunity — and
more, I have found the men. After this, I
have no doubt, the money will come in due
time. The details of the new plan I hope to
give in the next article.
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IRRIGATION, WHICH HAS MAINTAINED EGYPT SINCE THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
FOURTH ARTICLE
OUR WEALTH IN SWAMP AND DESERT
LAND FOR MILLIONS OF RICH FARMS TO BE RECLAIMED BY DRAINAGE
AND IRRIGATION. THE URGENT NEED OF REFORMING THE LAND LAWS
BY
JAMES J. HILL
THE water on the earth's surface, beneath
it, and suspended in the atmosphere
above it is a very important natural
resource. While less than 3 per cent, of
our food supply is drawn directly from river,
lake, and ocean, the whole of it depends upon
water in one form or another. Without that,
no soil can bring forth any form of life. It
is the universal and indispensable fertilizer.
But, like everything else in the physical world,
it follows laws of its own. Man must adapt
the distribution of water, by which the earth's
productiveness is regulated, to suit his needs.
Where there is too much for profitable cultiva-
tion, he must draw off the surplus; where
there is too little, he must bring in enough for
the support of plant and animal life. Upon
such control of water supply depend the habit-
ability of much of the earth's surface and its
contribution to the total stock of wealth.
Irrigation and drainage, therefore, stand in a
fundamental relation to national development.
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12597
A CANAL IN EGYPT
Where 5,000,000 acres of irrigated land supports 7,000,000 people
The people of the United States are interested
in both in proportion to the extent of its area
which can be made useful to man only by the
drainage ditch or the irrigating canal.
It is singular that we should have begun
systematically so late and only after so much
persuasion the practice of two of the oldest
agricultural arts. The origin of each is lost
in antiquity. Scarcely a mound is opened in
Syria, disclosing the site of some prehistoric
city, without exposing remains of conduits and
other irrigating appliances. In the arid parts
of the Western hemisphere similar ruins show
that irrigation was an applied science on this
continent ages before the white race occupied it.
A large portion of the most productive land in
England was, within historic time, bog, fen, and
morass. To relieve the land of an excess, to
BAHR YCUSSEF
Which the Egyptians say was built by Joseph
IRRIGATION IN ARIZONA
An increasing population depends upon its extension
THE BEAR RIVER CANAL
Near Salt Lake City, Utah. Built by Brigham Young
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12598
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
K "* ^r^^ **^^^TdM^Nm^' *'^» #"
jFvfiB iwAAfr
Courtesy of Raphael PumpeJIy
AN IRRIGATION CANAL FROM THE ZERAFSHAN RIVER IN CENTRAL ASIA
The site, so far as is now known, of the earliest occurrence of organized town life and agriculture and where it has
existed continuously since, supported by irrigation
supply a deficiency of water, have been first,
needs of each people in its turn, according
to the topography, soil, and climate of the
country it inhabited.
•** Wflrough several generations the land supply
of the United States was so ample that every
man might choose for himself from tracts where
nature had done for him the work of adjusting
water supply to the needs of plant life. It is
only as the area of public land contracts, as
population presses, as recourse is had to less
productive soils, that we begin to resort to
those other tracts, generally containing some
of the richest and choicest lands, which are
either saturated or water-starved beyond the
point of profitable cultivation.
A GARDEN IN NORTH CHINA
Where irrigation has been practised for thousands of years
Courtesy of Bureau of Plant Industry
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12599
THE IRRIGATION WORKS OF THREE GOVERNMENTS
(1) The main canal of Canada's 3,000,000 acre reclamation project. (2) The opening of the United States' Truckee-
Carson project (Nevada). (3) The Egyptian Government's canal below Cairo
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I2<XX>
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
THK ri-.LF.BRVnox OF THF: OPKXIXG OF THE Gt"XXISON TUNNEL
Tb'r '/.it <T.u'.w*'ri:.% i* ai Jr. :h'- Go'.crnnu-nt"> project for irn'gaiir.g 146.00c acres tributary to Montrose, Colo.
Of course, something has been done from
our earliest years. There have been pastures
reclaimed from river overflow, and patches of
garden along the watercourses of our arid area.
The English immigrant from the fen country
knew enough to dig ditches and lay tile here.
The Hollander sought a soil like that from
which his native land was made. The Mor-
mons founded a communal life dependent upon
THK CRAM) CANYON" OF THK GUNNISON THE FIRST WAVE THROUGH THE GUNNISON TUNNEL
From v.hi* li the water is taken b> 1 *ix mile tunnel under the mountain Opened by President Tall, September 24th, iqoq The Gunnison Can-
to the Uruompa^hre valley
yon is )>ehind the hills in the background
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
1 2601
WHERE WATER PRODUCES TOWNS ON THE DESERT
Mitchell, Neb., Huntley, Mont., and the Okanagon Valley settlement, the result of the work of the transcontinental
railroads and the Federal Government
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I26C2
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
A 320-ACRE RANCH WHICH WILL HARDLY SUPPORT A FAMILY
Without irrigation this semi -arid land yields nothing but grass, and not a large crop of that
irrigation. Yet it is less than twenty years
since advocacy of either in this country as a
general policy found understanding or support;
and less than ten since the campaign of educa-
tipn in the interest of either produced an
appreciable effect upon the public mind.
More than twenty years ago the St. Paul,
Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad Company,
of which the Great Northern is the successor,
took up and urged the work of drainage in the
Northwest, and bore a large part of thcexpense
as well. In 1886 a drainage convention was
called to meet at Crookston, Minnesota, in the
interest of the Red River Valley lands. The
railroad proposed to pay half the cost of a
survey of the valley if the counties interested
would pay the rest, so that there might be
definite information to go upon. The plan
was agreed to; and when the convention
met in December of that year, the engineer
employed by the railroad company made his
report, and the counties affected asked the
Legislature for permission to issue bonds for
drainage purposes. The 250,000 acres of land
originally granted by Congress for this purpose
had been diverted to other uses. At first the
Legislature refused; but seven years later the
state made an appropriation, and the railroad
gave $25,000 to aid the work. One of the con-
ditions of this subscription was that the chief
A SMALL IRRIGATED RANCH THAT KEEPS A FAMILY IN COMFORT
" By intensive cultivation, with fruits and vegetables, one acre can be made to support a family. Five acres is a
competence and ten acres the limit — if devoted to fruit farming — that one family can take care of properly "
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HOW THE FLATIRON BUILDING WOULD LOOK IN THE SHOSHONE DAM SITE
The Flatiron Building is 286 feet high, and the dam will be 325 feet and will create a storage lake in the valley
above the canyon for the flood waters of the river
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MAKING A DRAINAGE SURVEY
A Geological Survey party near Mud Lake, Minn., where the tripods
had to be twice the usual heigh, to keep the instruments from disappear-
ing in the mud altogether. A plan was made for the drainage of 266,750
acres, to cost about $4 an acre
engineer of the railroad company should be a
member of the drainage commission until the
work should be fairly started. By this means
the cost of the work was held down to from
10 to 12 cents per cubic yard, which is lower
than the work solely under government
charge is usually done. This was the begin-
ning of state drainage in Minnesota. The
progress that has been made appears from the
following facts, summarized from the report,
for the years 1907-1909, of Mr. Ralph, engineer
of the State Drainage Commission. The
original area of swamp, wet, and over-flowed
land in Minnesota was over 10,000,000 acres,
or one-fifth of the total land area of the state:
"Up to 1893 no public drainage work had been
done in the state and very little drainage work
has been done by private parties. From the year
1893 to 1900 some ditches were constructed in
different parts of the state, principally in the Red
River Valley. Since the year 1900 drainage work
has been carried on throughout the state on a
much greater scale; each succeeding year brought
greater activity in this line, the years 1907 and
1908 being the banner years in drainage in the
history of the state."
The benefits of the early educational work
are now being realized, just as they are in
irrigation. Under the Red River Valley Drain-
age Commission, $162,412 was expended
A SUGAR PLANTATION IN THE FLORIDA EVERGLADES
Drained land which produced from 25 to 40 tons of cane to the acre. A little more than 50 per cent, of Florida is
swamp or overflowed land. The state has begun to reclaim the Everglades
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12605
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A FARM ON A RECLAIMED PORTION OF THE DISMAL SWAMP
IN THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP IN NORTH CAROLINA
Which is forty miles long and about thirty-five miles wide
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Courtesy .»f the 1 .eological Survey
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12606
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tuurtesy of the Li. S. Geological Survey
A SAW-MILL ON HOLBECK'S BOG NEAR CHARLESTON, S. C.
Courtesy of the V S. Geological Survey
A STREET ON WHAT WAS THE SHIOCTON MARSH, WIS.
Courtesy of the V. S. Keclainatiou Scr%ke
GATHERING CHICORY ON THE RECLAIMED MARSHES NEAR STOCKTON, CAL.
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12607
AN IRRIGATING CANAL IN THE RICE FIELDS
The total crop of the United States in 1908 was worth $17,771,281
and
between 1893 3Xi^ 1899. Between 1901
1907 nearly 152 miles of ditches were con-
structed, at a cost of $127,749. In 1907 and
1908 work was carried on upon new state
ditches aggregating 189 miles, the total cost of
which is $295,457. Besides this there are 114
miles of cooperative ditches, and the whole
enterprise is now conducted according to a
comprehensive state law; with assessments for
benefits, and payments so distributed as to
impose the lightest burden on the farmer.
The history of drainage in the other states,
in so far as there are any to have a history, is
A RICE MILL AT LAKE CHARLES, LA.
HARVESTING LOUISIANA'S $9,000,000 RICE CROP BY MACHINERY
The rice industry created by irrigation and drainage
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I. A WAY FOR THE DREDGE
Through the woods from Alexandria to Chatlin's Lake, La.
Courtesy of the IT. S. Oolo^fc-al Survey
IT. THE DREDGE MAKING LTS THIRTEEN* MILE TRIP
On the canal which it digs as it goes along eating its way through
the swamp and leaving the land behind it drained
generally less promising. Under the Swamp
Land Act of 1850 the Federal Government ceded
to the several states 64,000,000 acres of such
lands. It was supposed that they would be
improved, sold, and the proceeds used for
other internal improvements. The bulk of this
immensely valuable possession has been dis-
sipated. The states have parted with their
land grants, often for little or no considera-
tion, while the main bodies of the swamps
and overflowed lands remains just as they
were sixty years ago.
The origin of irrigation as a national policy,
III. THE FINISHED CANAL
Which cost about $4,000 a mile and made the country dry
though it is now a commonplace,, is the same.
Up to a little more than twenty years ago the
conception of a Federal irrigation system did
not exist. Individuals had done a good deal
here and there, small corporations had done
something, and there was general interest in
the subject throughout the semi-arid states;
but there was no plan and no effort commen-
surate with the needs of the West. Nobody at
Washington would listen to a national irriga-
tion measure. Only a campaign of education
could bring results, and again the railroads led
the way and furnished the means required.
At first three, and a little later five of the great
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A TULIP FIELD IN HOLLAND
Where drainage has turned a marsh into a profitable flower-garden
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THE DITCH THAT CHANGES STERILITY TO FRUITFULNESS
In the foreground is sagebrush; beyond the ditch is a thriving farm. Prior to 1902 all irrigation in the United
States was the result of private enterprise. At that time about $200,000,000 had been* invested and about io,oco,ooo
acres actually irrigated
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railroad systems of the West contributed
$5,000 a year each as a fund to make investiga-
tions and publish facts. Through lectures,
farmers' institutes, the publication of articles
explaining the need and the opportunity, by
every legitimate method of creating and
strengthening public opinion, the work was
carried on until public sentiment grew strong
and politicians began to take notice. After
five years of hard work among the people,
Congress took up the subject and passed the
Reclamation Act of 1902, which is the founda-
tion of all the largest undertakings made or
likely to be made hereafter. No one would any
more dare to suggest its abandonment now
WHERE IRRIGATION PRECEDED THE INDIANS
The Apache boy is riding on the banks of an ancient irrigation
ditch in the Salt River Valley, Ariz., built by a people who preceded
the Apaches in that region. In this same valley now the United States
Reclamation Service is finishing an irrigating system to cover 240,000
acres tributary to Phoenix the capitol of the territory.
than he would the abolition of the post-office.
But it is directly the creation of the transporta-
tion interests of the West.
Under this law the Government engineers
make the necessary surveys and prepare plans
for dams, canals, flumes, and ditches. The Gov-
ernment constructs these works, after having
secured or assigned to each project the neces-
sary water rights. The proceeds of all sales
of public lands in sixteen states and territories,
to which the work is confined, with the excep-
tion of a project in Texas since added, are set
apart as a fund to pay cost of construction.
Photograph by Frank N. Meyer
WORKING FOR WATER IN CHINA
A primitive treadmill which uses man-power to raise water to the
irrigation ditches. Chinese methods of irrigation are common in
California where the coolie immigrants practise them as they did in
their native land.
The major portion of the amount obtained
from sales within any state — which is con-
strued to mean 51 per cent. — must be
expended within that state. The balance may
be assigned to any project. The cost of the
work is assessed upon the acreage reclaimed
under it. This is divided into ten equal
instalments. The settler can obtain the land,
in tracts not exceeding 160 acres, by paying
fifty cents per acre in cash and assuming the
Courtesy of C. J. Blanchartl
A MORMON WATER WHEEL IN UTAH
The current turning the wheel lifts water to the trough by which
it is carried to the irrigation ditches. Irrigation by English speaking
people in this country was begun by the Mormons in 1850 and since
then they have created wealth estimated at more than half a billion
dollars from a wilderness of alkali and sage brush.
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12611
ten deferred payments, which are to be made
annually for ten years. Title is not complete
until all these have been met. Thereafter
the land and the irrigating works belong to
the title-holders; and the sums which they
have paid in constitute a revolving fund,
which must be used in additional reclama-
tion work.
Thus the system, if not interfered with,
is self-supporting and self-perpetuating until
every acre of land that can be benefited t>y
irrigation shall have been redeemed, occupied
and cultivated. It is one of the most beneficent
works ever carried out by any government for
its people. The cost of the perpetual water
right so far has averaged, according to re-
ports of the Reclamation Service, from $20 to
$30 per acre; but in many cases it has been
$40 per acre or higher. Following the rule
that public enterprises are more costly than
private, this work costs too much. Where
water could be put on land for $10 to $12
per acre, the cost to the government is much
greater. Private enterprise is now putting on
the market lands with water right at no
greater price than the government charges for
the water right alone. The average amount
of water supplied annually is enough to cover
the land four feet deep. Only one-half of
this amount actually reaches the crops, the
remainder unavoidably escaping in the pro-
cess of being conducted to growing plants
and trees. Canada has followed a slightly
different method. In southern Alberta is a
tract of 3,000,000 acres reserved from set de-
ment. Irrigation works are completed, the
land is sold outright to settlers at from $15
to $25 an acre, and then there is a perpetual
water rate of fifty cents an acre annually.
About 1,000,000 acres were thus opened to
settlement last year.
Progress under our system has been very
rapid, for two reasons. Most of the country
dealt with had already been surveyed, and the
engineers were ready with their plans and
estimates. The money also was ready, the
fund having risen to over $23,000,000 by the
time field work began. In 1902, when the bill
became a law, about $200,000,000 had been
invested or sunk in irrigation projects by
individuals and corporations, and some
10,000,000 acres in the United States were
already fertilized in this way. Probably as
much more is now being reclaimed in various
Western states by private enterprise.
Under the national law, twenty-six projects
have been approved by the Secretary of the
Interior, and construction has begun. Over
$33,000,000 were expended in the first five
years. The Service employs 16,000 men and
spends about a million and a quarter each
month. Its completed canals now extend for
nearly 2,000 miles. Some of the work is of
stupendous magnitude. To reclaim 90,000
acres of land in South Dakota, the largest earth
dam in the world is being built. A solid wall of
masonry 325 feet high is rising to impound the
waters of the Shoshone River in a reservoir
covering ten square miles, by which 100,000
acres will be irrigated. The total area to be
redeemed by projects now under way is about
1,600,000 acres. Other projects found feasible
by the engineers would extend the reclaimed
area to more than three and three-quarter
million acres, at an estimated cost of
$160,000,000. The receipts and expenditures
of the entire Service to December 31, 191 1, are
estimated in its report at $58,000,000 each.
Most of the land reclaimed is of extraordinary
fertility when supplied with sufficient moisture.
By intensive cultivation, with fruits and vegeta-
bles, one acre can be made to support a family.
Five acres is a competence, and ten acres the
limit — if devoted to fruit farming — that one
family can take care of properly. Fruit grow-
ing has become a great industry, the desert
has acquired an actual value that ranges any-
where from $50 to $1,000 or $2,000 an acre,
homes for millions have been provided, and
the literature of the country is full of the
promise of irrigation. There are hundreds
of thousands of people to-day in cities and
workshops who have invested in these lands,
are getting them ready for occupancy and look
forward to a future spent in wholesome and
congenial labor on the soil.
It is most important in carrying forward
government projects like this, which always
cost more than the same work would as a
private enterprise and under personal super-
vision, that the character and cost of the work
should be carefully ascertained beforehand,
so that it may not exceed the estimates. Other-
wise the settler is crippled and discouraged.
Settlers in Montana under the Lower Yellow-
stone project, who were to pay $30 an acre for
ten years according to the estimates, are now
asked, on account of the excess cost of the
work over what was expected, to pay $42.50.
Probably the estimates originally were not
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wholly unreasonable, but the high prices that
were paid for labor and materials greatly
increased the actual levy on the soil. This
should always be avoided.
If no such record of progress for drainage
can be made out, it is because public opinion
has not been educated to the same extent.
It has been shown that much has been accom-
plished in Minnesota, because the railroad early
saw the need and value of the work. Yet it
is only a trifle in comparison with what might
and ought to be done. There are still plenty
worth at most some $50 an acre worth from
$100 to $150. Corporations have done some-
thing in Florida and elsewhere. The govern-
ment of the state has made a beginning of
reclaiming the Everglades. As we shall see
presently, the possibilities of reclamation by
drainage in this country as a whole are not
inferior to those of reclamation by irrigation.
The land so gained is decayed vegetable matter,
enriched by the deposits of ages. The tracts
usually lie in settled communities, within easy
reach of roads and markets. But public edu-
NEARLY 120,000 SQUARE MILES THAT CAN BE RECLAIMED BY DRAINAGE
'The engineering problems are simple and the cost is light. Irrigation costs from $20 to $60 per acre. Drainage
probably averages less than $10, and sometimes it is as low as $2 or $3"
of farmers who complain that their lands are
too flat, although there is several times more
slope than suffices to carry off the water of
the upper Mississippi; who object to the
slightest tax that is not spent on their own
acres; who, after the ditches are in place, plow
their lands across the drainage rather than
with it, thus holding the water on the
land. And one may see, on the finest lands
in the world, bountiful crops turn from green
to yellow in a week or two. The expenditure
of from two to five dollars an acre would
save these crops. It would make land now
cation has not proceeded as far in one direction
as in the other.
The country cannot know even yet what is
the limit of additions to national wealth which
may be made by the reclamation of lands now
unproducing because of either deficiency or
excess of water supply. Our ideas about the
practical value of drainage are the less definite
of the two, because they have been less enlight-
ened by discussion. Mr. Guy Elliott Mitchell,
of the United States Geological Survey, has
made the completest summary of possibilities,
in an exhaustive article published in the Review
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1 2613
of Reviews in 1908. While the ordinary esti-
mate of the area of American swamps is
from 70,000,000 to 80,000,000 acres, he thinks
that a larger total, probably well upward of
100,000,000 acres, is indicated by the Govern-
ment's investigations. Florida has between
23,000,000 and 24,000,000 acres of wet land,
and there are fully 20,000,000 acres in the
Mississippi Valley subject to overflow. Mr.
Mitchell, says:
"There are seventeen Eastern states every one
of which has more than 1,000,000 acres of swamps,
and there are twelve additional Eastern states hav-
Dcprztst'jn* below tea Uvel I "1
0 10 *) w
i rEfl.scHELLiNa>S^*
Copyright, 1906, by Thomas Nelson & Sons
THE RECLAIMED LAND (SHADED) IN HOLLAND
Amounting to more than 1,000,000 acres since 1600. The highest point
of ground in the kingdom is about as high as the tallest building in New
York and two-fifths of its area is below sea-level, yet by diking and
draining it is made to support 450 people per square mile. The
population of New Jersey is a 50 per square mile
ing between 250,000 and 1,000,000 acres each,
and there are six more Eastern states with
an aggregate area of nearly 7,500,000 acres of
swamps."
In the eastern and central parts of the coun-
try most farms have a few acres of low ground
which no attempt has been made to redeem
because there is acreage enough without them.
It seems reasonable to believe that the aggre-
gate of wet land available for cultivation by
proper drainage will be far above the largest
figure yet named. Professor Shaler says that
in Great Britain and Ireland fully one-fifth
of the most fertile agricultural lands has been
reclaimed by drainage, and that one-twentieth
of the now tillable land in Europe was inun-
dated and unfit for agriculture in the eighth
century.
This affords us a measure of what may be
accomplished in the future on this continent.
In Minnesota alone some idea of what may be
done has been given, though our knowledge of
the statistical facts is still slender. The Federal
Government has made surveys of the ceded
Chippewa lands, in the northern part of the
state, now held in trust. There are 2,500,000
acres of them, and the cost of reclamation
with ditches running to each 160 acres is
put ct $2.75 an acre. Surveys of another
tract in northern Minnesota show that
400,000 acres might be reclaimed by drainage
for less than $5 per acre, and might afterward
be worth from $50 to $100 an acre. There
are such possibilities everywhere. The engin-
eering problems are simple and the cost is
light. Irrigation should cost from $12 to $60
per acre. Drainage probably averages less than
$10, and sometimes is as low as $2 or $3.
For the future of drainage work, unless we
wait upon the slow progress of public enlighten-
ment and the reluctance of people to tax them-
selves now for a future benefit, reliance must
be placed upon some such measure as has been
already proposed to Congress but not yet
adopted. This is in principle a duplication
of the reclamation law, and proposes to do
for drainage what was done for irrigation.
Moneys received from the sale of public lands
in a number of Southern and Western states,
not included in the Reclamation Act of 1902,
and all containing much swamp or over-
flowed lands, would be set aside as a drainage
fund. This would be used to dig ditches,
establish pumping stations and complete
drainage works exactly as is done in irrigation
work; the cost to be repaid in the same way,
in ten annual instalments, to go into a revolving
fund for similar employment elsewhere. There
can be no more objection to one policy than
to the other. The public benefit will be equal.
There should be concentrated effort to pro-
cure such legislation. For while there are
immense areas of arid land which can never
be irrigated, there is scarcely an acre of swamp
land anywhere that cannot be drained or
diked until fit for cultivation.
If the possibilities of irrigation arc more
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
vague, they are no less alluring. The value and
importance of the work are being more and
more realized. There are about 100,000,000
acres irrigated in the whole world. Egypt
has 5,000,000 irrigated acres, supporting
7,000,000 people. Some of the greatest
engineering feats of modern times have been
performed in the construction of great dams
on the Nile, by which the natural overflow
and subsidence of the river may be aided or
imitated by man. English engineers are now
beginning irrigation works under government
authority in Mesopotamia, to restore the lost
beauty of what was once the garden of the
world. Some irrigated lands in Egypt support
900 persons to the square mile, in Italy over
800, in India over 1 ,200. It has been estimated
that there are 60,000,000 acres of irrigable land
in the United States. Probably, with experi-
ence and improved methods, that amount will
be increased. Great spaces of what was once
called the Great American Desert have been
converted into rich farm lands, and more will
be found available than we now imagine.
In some places where government reclamation
work has been done, it is reported that the
water supply is appropriated for less land than
it ought to cover. Not all the land among the
mountains nor all the alkali plains can be
redeemed; but the total subject to experiment
is so great, the raw material so abundant,
that the fulness of its promise will be realized
only after many generations.
The need and the value of additions to the
tillable area are emphasized by the rapid
increase of population and the decrease of
the public domain. The latter has almost
disappeared. The question of homes for
future generations is of paramount importance.
At the close of the Civil War the frontier was
about the Des Moines valley, in Iowa. Kan-
sas was still mostly unsettled. Now the coun-
try has been developed to the Pacific Coast.
States and cities that are marvels of growth
have come into being. Some authorities have
declared that by the end of six years there
will be no tillable public lands in the United
States, outside of the reclamation area. But
this view is modified by the great possibilities
of new and better methods of farming. The
method of cultivation misnamed "dry farming"
has rendered productive very large areas here-
tofore regarded as of little or uncertain value
to production. In the Judith Basin, in Mon-
tana, there have been harvested 57 bushels of
wheat per acre, weighing over 60 pounds to
the bushel. The following table gives the area
of public lands passing into private ownership
during the past ten years:
YEAR ACRES
1898 8,421,703
1899 9,090,623
1900 13,391,464
1901 15,453,449
1902 19,372,385
1903 22,650,928
1904 16,258,892
I9°5 16,979,075
1906 19,345,444
1907 20,866,592
Over 160,000,000 acres have thus been appro-
priated 'in a decade, and the quantity and
quality of the remainder fall together. In
spite of this wholesale appropriation, or rather
because it has been so largely a game of grab
and speculation instead of honest home-mak-
ing, the density of population in the whole
country from the Missouri River to the Pacific
was, at the last census, scarcely three to the
square mile. When population reaches a
density of 250 to the square mile, which was
that of New Jersey in 1900 and was much
exceeded by both Massachusetts and Rhode
Island, each 100,000 square miles redeemed
by irrigation will make room for 25,000,000
additional people. This is on the reasonable
basis of one family to each ten acres, and four
persons to each family. Such relief from the
pressure of population will be appreciated
more as we approach the middle of the century
and the total of 200,000,000 people for the
United States. By that time the two forms
of land reclamation will have become national
benefactions; and the work that we are pros-
ecuting along those lines to-day will be the
foundation of future prosperity and a safe-
guard against future dangers.
In addition to its obvious value as a home
provider, the reclamation of swamp and desert
lands affects powerfully the general character
of agriculture, the level of comfort, the life
of the community and the health and intellect-
ual activity of the people. In these respects
it rises in dignity and value as a national
resource higher than by its additions to super-
ficial area and gross wealth. These recovered
lands are the country of the small farm. Their
value can be brought out only by more or less
intensive tillage; by the growing of fruits,
vegetables and other market produce. The
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12615
moral of the small farm, with its greater per-
centage of profits, is thus kept continually
before the people. The farm containing from
a quarter of a section (160 acres) up, carelessly
cultivated, requiring incessant work and yield-
ing a meagre return per acre, cannot hold its
own against the snug comfort and ample
rewards of the little holding.
The census of 1900 gave tables showing the
value of products from irrigated land in the
several states per acre and per irrigator. Either
because the facts were imperfectly ascertained
or because of the great increase in products
and values since then, the figures are no
longer valuable. They do show, however,
relatively, that where farms are largest the
return per acre is smallest, and vice versa.
Where irrigation prevails, there is certainty,
abundance and variety of products. Water
being procurable at will, unfavorable seasons
do not exist and the growth of plant life is at
the command of the cultivator. Abundance
follows, because reclaimed lands are richer than
any others in the elements that promote growth.
These have not been exhausted by cultivation or
leached away by rains and floods. The mar-
velous yields obtained from irrigated lands at
first seemed beyond credence; they are such a
familiar story now that illustrations are un-
necessary. In Utah the Mormons have created
wealth estimated at more than half a billion
dollars from a wilderness of alkali and sage
brush. As soon as water is put on this formerly
worthless land it rises in value to $50, $100, in
many cases to $1,000 or even $2,000 an acre;
prices justified by the profits from special crops
of early fruits, melons, berries or vegetables to
supply high-priced markets. Towns like North
Yakima and Wenatchee in Washington double
their population in a few years and exhibit
an increase of wealth matched only by the
growth of centres in newly discovered mining
regions. But while the wealth of mines must
finally become extinct, the market town of a dis-
trict intensively cultivated becomes a larger and
more important business centre year after year.
With the more intelligent and remunerative
system of farm cultivation come incidental
advantages at least as important as the
additions to wealth. In a former article the
social superiority of the community of small
farms has been mentioned. Cooperation
and associative enterprise flourish. Schools,
churches, telephones, rural mail delivery, com-
forts of all sorts abound. Life is no longer
isolation. Practically every worthy attraction
that draws people to the cities is added to the
country life. Health is improved. The desert
is always wholesome, but the draining of
swamps reduces disease. The reclaimed coun-
try is one continuous village, with houses set
in more than usually spacious grounds, with
neighbors everywhere and no incentive for
the upbuilding of centres of concentrated
population, destructive a^ well as creative of
high civilization. Material comfort, health and
social and intellectual activity are attendants of
the reclamation system on a large scale. The
economic values are no more evident or pro-
nounced than the sociological and the ethical.
The country must come to look upon both
drainage and irrigation as parts of a national
conservation plan. No movement of our time
is more suggestive or encouraging than that
which shows a people at last awaking to a sense
of national economic responsibility. For our
own sake, in the higher as well as the lower
sense, for our future preservation as well as
for our moral respectability, we must consider
our resources as a whole, and plan the disposi-
tion and conservation of them with reference
to one another. For they fit into, supplement
and depend upon one another as nicely as do
the different forces of nature herself. Irriga-
tion, drainage, ' flood restraint, forestry and
waterway improvement are so closely tied
together that any intelligent prosecution of one
of them draws all the others after it. That we
have legislated about them singly and piece-
meal is one of our costliest national mistakes.
There should be a scientific national plan, pre-
pared by the best available skill after thorough
investigation, in which each of these interests
should be so cared for as to promote all the
others and draw help from them in turn. They
are all intimately related to the greatest of all
economic purposes, the conservation of the
soil and its productive power. Our governing
bodies will not become fully worthy of the
name until they shall have assigned to each of
these agencies its place in the coordinating
scheme of national development.
How backward we are still is shown by the
fact that no urgency of public opinion and no
pressure of common honesty has yet succeeded
in taking the preliminary step — a reasonable
reform of the land laws. The agencies of
justice are employed in discovering and punish-
ing land thieves whose crimes were invited by
legislation apparently framed for their especial
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12616
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
profit. The repeal of the Desert Land Act, the
Timber and Stone Act and the stringent en-
forcement of the provisions of the Homestead
Act are necessary to honest dealing with the
land question. Speculators and land-grabbers
prevent this, while occasional Congressmen and
Senators are smirched and disgraced by partici-
pating in land frauds. We have enlarged the
unit of public land for Alaska, in order to
tempt dishonesty there. We have made it
automatic action of the law providing the neces-
sary funds. Had this work been done by the
plan now urged for waterways, by direct
appropriations and bond issues, we should
have spent at least $500,000,000 of money
that did not belong to us upon it. It will be
completed by the proceeds of land sales aggre-
gating probably not much more than from
$50,000,000 to $75,000,000 altogether. The
gain, not in some theoretical way, but in actual
THE IRRIGATION PROJECTS OF THE UNITED STATES RECLAMATION SERVICE
"One of the most beneficent works ever carried on by any government for its people"
160 acres for land reclaimed at great expense,
although a large family could not possibly cul-
tivate twenty acres of this land as it should be.
Perhaps economy must be substituted for the
extravagance now too prevalent in every depart-
ment of government before we can hope to see it
supreme in land reclamation and distribution.
But this plain business conception must be re-
stored before the country can hope either to re-
alize upon or retain its most valuable resources.
Meantime irrigation is proceeding under the
added resources, maybe measured by a glance
at the productive power of the irrigated and
irrigable country.
The fourteen states and two territories named
in the reclamation act produced in 1908
330,250,000 bushels of wheat, or 50 per cent,
of the whole crop of this country, valued at
$291,112,000; 553,564,000 bushels of corn, or
21 per cent, of all, worth $290,546,000;
89,058,000 bushels of barley, or 53 per cent, of
all, worth $42,241,000; 208,091,000 bushels
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
1 261 7
of oats, or 26 per cent, worth $92,731,000;
51,782,000 bushels of potatoes, or 15 per cent.,
worth $34,503,000; and 16,532,000 tons of hay,
or 23 per cent., worth $120, 571,000. Yet these
states and territories contain a land area of
1,552,737 square miles, out of a total of
2,974,159 in the whole United States, or 52 per
cent, of our continental area exclusive of
Alaska. They were inhabited in 1900 by
only* 7,747,192 people, a beggarly 10 per cent,
of the entire population. Liberal estimates for
our growth since that raise this only to about
12 J per cent. It is reasonable to assume that,
through irrigation, the 52 per cent, of our West-
ern area will in the future carry more nearly
52 per cent, of our population than only 12.
The possible additions to natural wealth and
capacity for support by drainage are not as
easily calculated, because, with a few excep-
tions, like the Dismal Swamp and the Ever-
glades, they exist in scattered blocks of land
rather than in a connected territory. But
enough has been said to show that, as a re-
source, they will probably be not inferior in
total to the irrigable country. Most progress
in the increase of wealth in our time has
been through improvement in processes, econo-
mies in handling, utilization of low values,
creation of by-products — by the slow and
patient methods that aim at eliminating
waste. It will probably be found that the
areas which may be either reclaimed or
made to produce several times as much as
they do to-day, and to bear values several
times as great, by a scientific readjustment
of their water supply in one direction or the
other have been as much underestimated as the
mining engineer of a generation ago under-
valued the ores that he rejected because of their
low percentage or the admixture of elements
which we have since learned to get rid of.
We can scarcely guess to-day at the total gains
to accrue from regulation of water supply, after
it shall have furnished its last addition to till-
able area and productive power; after it shall
have completed its work for the expansion of
the country and the betterment of its people.
To the transportation agencies, especially
those operating in the West, the subject is of
great importance. They were quick to realize
this and act upon it. As they were pioneers in
the campaign of education for both irrigation
and drainage, so they are as vitally interested
as ever, and are promoting both by every
means in their power. The railroad satisfied
merely to move an already existing tonnage
will soon be distanced. It can grow only as
the communities along its lines multiply and
prosper. With every addition to them, every
increase in the volume of traffic, come gains
for the two parties now understood by honest
men to be not rivals but partners; namely,
an increased revenue for the carrier and a
lowered rate for the shipper. Ordinary sagac-
ity and intelligent self-interest prompt the
railroad to support sincerely and continuously
projects that involve an increase of population
within its territory measured by millions, and
increase of a tonnage movement measured by
billions of ton mileage. If its original motive
was selfish, it was the kind of selfishness out of
which civilization has been developed; since all
progress shows that a man can benefit himself
truly and permanently only by accomplishment
that benefits his fellows also. It desires and
receives the benefits naturally flowing from
enterprises that help to make the nation rich
and strong. It asks and should receive in
return that fair treatment and dispassionate
judgment which occasionally disappear under
the assaults of men mistaken or dishonest, but
which will in the end be neither denied nor
withheld by the American people.
It has been made clear how close is the
relation between reclamation work and all the
other forms of conservation and development of
resources. To put water on arid land is to
fertilize it as really as to add phosphates or to
enrich it by fallowing and rotation of crops.
To take away the excess is simply the obverse
of the same coin. Both are mighty agents
in the work that we have before us; which, if
we aim to be better than the brutes, must be
to preserve and provide for the generations to
come.
It is a new world that is to be called into
existence; and in this there is perfect com-
munity of interest, because in it we all have,
through our children, through hopes that
run into the distant future, through our desire
for national prosperity and perpetuity, a
mighty stake. It is worth our while to work
in the present toward the large ends that these
labors presuppose, though directly they may
profit little those who contribute most; be-
cause of a worthy national spirit and because
of that satisfaction which comes to all who
have helped to open the door to opportunity
and to an outlook upon a broader, and
happier and more bountiful human life.
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THE BUILDING OF A MONEY-TRUST
HOW BANKING POWER OF THREE BILLION DOLLARS HAS BEEN CENTRALIZED AT
MR. J. P. MORGAN'S DESK — A PRIVATE BANKING HOUSE THAT RIVALS THE BANK
OF ENGLAND OR THE BANK OF FRANCE — THE STORY OF A GREAT ACHIEVEMENT
BY
C M. KEYS
IN the southwest corner of the Drexel Build-
ing, at the corner of Broad and Wall
streets, there is a big square room. To
reach it, one passes the length of an outside
office, full of clerks and guardians, skirts a wall
of glass partitions fencing off a collection of
busy desks at which sit the "junior members"
of the firm, winds through another series of high
bookkeepers' desks, and passes at last through
a big, dark door. There is another way, but
only the initiated use it. It opens through a
little door in the dark at the top of a flight of
steps, down on a balcony in another office-
building.
In this well-guarded office, one afternoon in
October, 1907, Mr. J. P. Morgan discussed the
financial affairs of the nation with a visitor
who could not keep still. He had come over,
in a great hurry, from the marble building just
across the way. Panic was loose, and none
knew it better than he, the president of the
New York Stock Exchange. All day he had
been appealing madly to the big banks for active
aid and support. A dozen times the telephone
had dashed his hopes to pieces. In the end,
it had all simmered down to just two words:
"See Morgan!"
At the same hour, in an office a little way
down the street, a bank manager, one of the
biggest, talked to a newspaper editor. It was
two o'clock. Ten feet from the desk the ticker
whirred. A man standing at it turned every
minute or so and spoke to the manager, telling
the prices. The manager's mind ran back to
a pregnant day in history, and borrowed the
form of a phrase:
" It's 3 p. m. — or Morgan!" said he.
And meantime, the veteran had taken com-
mand. By messenger, by telephone, by word
of mouth, he called the capital of the city to his
desk. The call was urgent; but it was not
panic-stricken.
The response was, one might say, feeble.
A dozen banks declined to help, on the ground
that every dollar of their resources was engaged
in defense, in holding off from their own vaults
the hordes of panic. Few, indeed, were the
quick, ready, fearless replies to the orders,
or prayers, of the commander.
By very hard work, a few paltry millions of
dollars were marshaled to meet the shock.
The few were enough, but no more than enough.
If the crisis had been reached at 11 A. m. instead
of 2 p. m., it is doubtful to this day whether the
quickly gathered funds thrown into the arena
by Mr. Morgan would have withstood it.
That night, and for many other days and
nights, there was hot work to do. The strain
was met by the issue of clearing-house certifi-
cates, and gradually the panic passed. The
trail of it still lies across the land, though almost
obliterated by the wheel-tracks of prosperity.
In that hour, between half-past one and
half-past two on that October afternoon, the
so-called "money trust" was conceived. The
genesis of it was the knowledge forced upon
Mr. J. P. Morgan, that neither he nor any
other man or group of men in this country had
the power to marshall the financial strength of
the nation to meet a crisis, a panic, or a long-
continued attack upon the heart of the financial
world. He had always known that fact It
had never come home to him so vitally, so
directly and so dreadfully as in these few min-
utes when he harried the town for money to
save the Stock Exchange from closing its doors.
On that day, Mr. J. P. Morgan and his firm
became the Bank of the United States in fact,
if not in form. Let us cite a parallel. One
November 7th, a man waited on Mr. William
Lidderdale, governor of the Bank of England,
and informed him that the greatest private
banking-house in England was about to col-
lapse. Its net liabilities, he stated, were over
$100,000,000. The crash, all men knew, would
shake the world.
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THE BUILDING OF A MONEY-TRUST
12619
THE CENTRAL BANK OF THE UNITED STATES
The great bulk of the banking power dominated by Messrs. Morgan, Stillman and Baker lies within a circle
of less than one-eighth mile radius, with Mr. Morgan's office as the centre. In this map, the figures indicate these
banks and kindred institutions : (1) J. P. Morgan & Co.; (2) New York Stock Exchange; (3) First National Bank;
(4) National Bank of Commerce; (5) National City Bank; (6) Liberty National Bank; (7) Hanover National Bank;
(8) Chase National Bank; (9) Banker's Trust Co.; (10) Equitable Trust Co.; (11) Mercantile Trust Co.; (12)
Guaranty Trust Co.; (13) New York Trust Co.; (14) Standard Trust Co.; (15) Equitable Life Assurance Society
Mr. Lidderdale was a man made for the
hour. He was not forced, like Mr. Morgan, to
make appeals for help. He was the head of a
bank that is the financial head of a nation of
banks. His messages to the joint-stock banks
of England were not pleadings for help. They
were the commands of a Wellington to his line
of battle. Within the measure, of a week, the
joint-stock banks of England and Scotland
had guaranteed to the Bank of England a fund
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12620
THE BUILDING OF A MONEY-TRUST
of $75,000,000 to make good any losses that
it might meet in liquidating the affairs of
Baring Brothers.
Then the hand of the bank closed around the
tottering house. Gold was drawn from the
four corners of the earth. So perfect was the
bank's command of the situation that it did not
even raise its rate above 6 per cent; and the
governor himself insistently urged the joint-
stock banks to go on discounting the commercial
paper of the nation just as though they were
not in the middle of a panic.
MORGAN— BAKER— STILLMAN
CONTROLLED OR DOMINATED
Liabilities $1,136,000,000
Percentage of total, 35.6%
POWERFUL BUT NOT DOMINANT
Liabilities $311,000,000
Percentage of total, 9.9%
ONE OR TWO DIRECTORS ON BOARD
Liabilities $380,000,000
Percentage of total, 11.9%
NO REPRESENTATIVES ON THE
BOARD
Liabilities $1,360,000,000
Percentage of total 42.6%
TRUST COMPANIES AND NATIONAL BANKS IN
MANHATTAN
These banks do practically all the financial business done in the city.
The state banks are largely commercial and almost entirely independent
The weakness of Mr. Morgan's position,
in comparison with Mr. Lidderdale's, is appar-
ent immediately. It was not a position at all.
He did not rally the forces of his country
because he held a strategic commanding point
of vantage. His power lay in himself, not
in his lawful prerogatives. He was a man
with his back against a wall; but he built the
wall himself. Mr. Lidderdale, on the con-
trary, exercised power that was his right. The
Chancellor of the British Exchequer was
behind him. He offered to allow the bank the
privilege, twice before granted, to suspend lie
bank act and issue uncovered notes. Mr.
Lidderdale refused. He fought his battle with
forces trained under his hand; and never for a
moment called upon his last reserves.
Mr. Morgan, on the other hand, was forced,
in the last ditch, to waive his objections and
give his countenance to the last resort, the issue
of fiat money by the banks.
To the layman or student, drawing parallels
between the behavior of our banks and those
of England and France in the Baring and Union
G6n&rale collapses, the argument is all for the
formation of a Central Bank.
To Mr. J. P. Morgan, to the firm of J. P.
Morgan & Co., and to many of the strong
men who surround the Morgan standard, the
argument bears a different conclusion.
"We must be stronger to meet such crises!"
was the burden of the message that went the
rounds of the Wall Street district.
There was no method supplied by the Gov-
ernment of the United States to accomplish this
end. A National Monetary Commission was
appointed; but to this day it has not even dis-
cussed a remedy. It has spent the meantime
in studying the facts in other countries. A
year hence it may report a plan. Five years
after the panic of 1907, perhaps, there will be
changes in effect that may obviate the danger
that nearly swept us from our feet in 1907.
In the meantime, Mr. Morgan stands astride
the world.
The method he used to strengthen himself
and the financial structure against panic was
typical of his character. It was direct, swift,
and practical. In a word, he swept away as
immaterial and foolish the jealousies, ambitions
and private policies that had kept the great
New York banks apart and antagonistic the
one to the other; and he proceeded to draw into
a compact circle a dozen scattered banking
interests. He organized and created around
his office, at 23 Wall Street, an organized bank-
ing power that he believes strong enough to
take the place of the Central Bank in England,
France, or Germany.
The commander-in- chief of this great mobi-
lized host is Mr. J. P. Morgan, a man of seventy-
three, born in Connecticut, highly educated,
rich from his birth, trained in the finance of
two continents. His chiefs of staff are Mr.
Geo. F. Baker, chairman of the First National,
a man from up-state; and Mr. James Still-
man, chairman of the National City, a Texan
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THE BUILDING OF A MONEY-TRUST
12621
Both these men are graduates of the lower
schools and of the banking desk. Both have
come up from the bottom by hard climbing.
Both are technically retired from the active
work of the banking world. Both are tremen-
dously wealthy. Both command enormous
capital resources outside the banks which they
represent.
Under the hands of these three men work a
dozen whose names are well known in the world.
In the Morgan office sit Messrs. J. P. Morgan,
Jr., Geo. W. Perkins, Charles Steele, H. P.
Davison — the last a recent recruit from the
First National of New York, a young man
of wonderful skill, charming manner, intense
earnestness, and executive ability.
Beside them, outside the doors of the office,
labor such men as Mr. F. A. Vanderlip,
Frank Hine, Valentine P. Snyder, A. Barton
Hepburn, Jas. T. Woodward — presidents of
great banks; and in the minor banking and
insurance fields a hundred other men whose
names are known very well locally but carry
little meaning to the country at large.
In the front of the array is the private bank-
ing house of J. P. Morgan & Co., with its
branches; J. S. Morgan & Co., of London,
recently reihristened Morgan, Grenfell& Co.;
Morgan, Hartjes & Co., of Paris; Drexel,
Morgan & Co., of Philadelphia. Its deposits
are guessed by the Wall Street Journal to be
well over $200,000,000 in the New York firm
alone. Its credit girdles the world. Its power
extends over thousands of miles of American
railroad, rules the greatest of the trusts, dom-
inates more than a dozen smaller lines of indus-
try and thrift — and holds together the banking
power of New York.
Immediately behind it stand the greatest
of the national banks, in solid line for the first
time in their history. Two of them are popu-
larly supposed to be controlled by stock owner-
ship in the Morgan house. That does not mat-
ter. Nobody cares very much who collects the
dividends on the stocks of these banks. The
important question, from the standpoint of Mr. |
Morgan and the standpoint of the people is
rather : " Who runs this bank ? ' '
It is along this line that the compilation of
the banking resources of the firm of J. P. Mor-
gan & Co. must be made, if it is to mean any-
thing. That is the line that has been followed
in this article. There is no proof, and the
writer does not believe, that Mr. Morgan or his
firm or his immediate friends control the Nat-
ional City Bank, the Chase Bank, the Hanover
National Bank. Perhaps the Morgan-Baker
group, combined, does control the First Na-
tional and the Chase National. I don't see that
it makes any difference whether they do or not,
so long as they can say to these banks, alike in
crisis or in fair weather: " Do this!" — and the
banks do it.
The third line of attack or defense is made up
of trust companies. The authorities list seven
of them that acknowledge direct allegiance to
the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co. The acquisi-
tion of control over the Guaranty Trust
Company is interesting mainly because it
was bought from the Harriman Estate. So
soon passes the power and the prejudice of
the dead.
Behind all these, the last and the most power-
ful of all, there is arrayed a reserve force that
has no classification. In it stands the Equitable
Life, now directly controlled by ownership,
BRITISH EMPIRE
SI 1,1 57,000,000 J
0.8. BANKS
OTHER THAN NATIONAL
10,260,000,00(
U.S. NATIONAL BANKS
0,708,000,000
1
CONTINENTAL EUROPE
8,478,000,000
1
MORGAN - BAKER -"1
STILLMAN BANKS J
8,000,000,000
A GAUGE OF BANKING POWER
The Morgan-Stillman-Baker banks, held in a loose community of
interests, represent a banking power more than half as great as that of
the entire continent of Europe, excluding Great Britain
but not under direct command, because the law
is its master. Beside it is the New York Life.
If the Morgan firm exercises any control over it,
it is based on nothing more substantial than
friendship. Mr. Perkins, a Morgan partner, was
a New York Life Insurance Company man.
His advice is still potent in the company —
and that is about all the hold that Mr. Morgan
has over the New York Life. Yet it is a very
real control in the sense in which any financial
critic will use the phrase in computing the
financial power of J. P. Morgan & Co.
With them is a great group of estates, held in
the Morgan community of interests by purely
personal ties. In a panic, it is probable that
every dollar of available money held for the
Astor, the Harriman, the Goelet, the Sloan,
and other such estates — left largely in the
world of business — would come at Mr. Mor-
gan's call. Beyond that, in the panic of 1907,
the strongest support that Mr. Morgan gained
came from such funds as those controlled by the
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12622
THE BUILDING OF A MONEY-TRUST
Rockefellers, the Goulds, the Moores, and
others, half in business, half retired.
This capital, and the capital of private men
who stand beneath the Morgan banner, cannot
be reckoned in any calculation. In the tables
that accompany this article, it is ignored.
Only the definitely mobilized masses of capital,
banking resources and others, are counted.
Nor is any count to be taken of the many
corporations, railroad, industrial, mercantile,
that lie in the hands of the Morgan firm. The
Wall Street Journal computes the capitalization
of the Morgan roads at $2,585,000,000; and
of the Morgan industrials at $1,836,000,000.
That is not banking power. Such of the re-
sources of these companies as can be counted
in the banking world is already included when
one counts the deposits of the Morgan banks —
or, at least, that is a fair assumption.
Little count need be taken of the banks or
insurance companies in which one or two
directors sit who represent the central interest;
for in a great many cases such representation
means little. Mr. Baker, for instance, is a
director of the Bowery Savings Bank, the big-
gest in the United States. This does not mean
that he or Mr. Morgan, or any one else can
use or direct the funds of that great bank. It
merely means that Mr. Baker was willing to
give a little of his time without any pay to
help administer that bank. Perhaps, if he
wanted to put a mortgage on his house or on
an office building, the Bowery would lend it;
but so would any other savings bank, no matter
whether he were a director or not.
Similarly, Messrs. Morgan, Baker, Stillman,
Setoff, Hine, Perkins, and others of the group
may be found as directors in scattered insur-
ance companies other than the New York Life,
Equitable, and Mutual. The German-Ameri-
can Fire, Fidelity Fire, Niagara Fire, Con-
tinental Fire, Home Life, and Provident Loan
Society have all one or more of these men as
directors.
These facts probably mean nothing; and
in this article the financial power of all these
companies is omitted altogether from the
computation of resources even remotely under
the influence of Mr. Morgan. Even the
Mutual Life Insurance Company is not con-
sidered.
Outside of Manhattan national banks and
trust companies, traces of the central banking
power might be found in the Fidelity Bank, a
state bank; the Brooklyn Trust; First National
of Chicago; Industrial Trust Company of
Providence, R. L; Newport Trust Co., New-
port, R. I.; Fidelity Trust Co., of Kansas City,
Mo.; Riggs National Bank, of Washington
D. C; American Exchange National, of Seattle;
and many others scattered over the United
States. All these interests are disregarded
in estimating the power that the Morgan-
Baker-Stillman community of interests may
wield.
(1) Banks Dominated by the Morgan-Baker-
Stillman Group
BANKS LIABILITIES
First National Bank $162,000,000
National City Bank 317,000,000
Bank of Commerce 266,000,000 }
Liberty National Bank .... 28,000,000
Astor Trust Co 17,000,000
Equitable Trust Co 62,000,000
Mercantile Trust Co 75,000,000
Guaranty Trust Co 100,000,000
New York Trust Co 88,000,000
Standard Trust Co 21,000,000
Total $1,136,000,000
(2) Banks in Which They Have Great Power, but
No Control
BANKS LIABILITIES
Lincoln National Bank .... $24,000,000
Chase National Bank .... 121,000,000 /
Hanover National Bank .... 124,000,000
Morton Trust Co 42,000,000
Total $311,000,000
(3) Banks in Which They Have Only One or
Two Directors
banks .
Citizens' Central National
Butchers' and Drovers' National
Second National Bank . . .
United States Trust Co. . .
United States Mortgage & Trust
Farmers' Loan & Trust . .
Manhattan Trust Co. . . .
liabilities
$ 32,000,000
3,000,000
17,000,000
93,000,000
59,000,000
154,000,000
22,000,000
Total $380,000,000
These are the cardinal facts concerning the
banking power of the firm of J. P. Morgan &
Co. — and this is the banking power that has
come to be called, in the journalistic if not in
the financial world, the "money-trust." How
far it deserves that title one may judge only by
comparison.
Let us reckon the banking power of J. P.
Morgan & Co., including the two life-insur-
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Google
THE BUILDING OF A MONEY-TRUST
12623
V
ance companies. When the comptroller of
the currency starts out to reckon banking power,
he adds together the capital, surplus, profits,
deposits, and circulation of the banks, and calls
the result the measure of "banking power."
Measured in this way, the "banking power" of
the group of banks and bankers brought into
the Morgan community of interests may be
measured in these approximate figures:
National Banks — (Four con-
trolled, three in community of
interest) $1,100,000,000
Trust Companies — (Controlled
directly, or through insurance
companies, or strongly affili-
ated; 490,000,000
I Life-Insurance Companies —
(One controlled by stock; one
in friendly alliance .... 1,000,000,000
Private Banks — (J. P. Mor-
gan & Co., of New York;
Kuhn, Loeb & Co. — esti-
mated deposits) 350,000,000
Total $2,940,000,000
The banking power, actual or latent, directly
or indirectly at the call of Mr. Morgan to-day,
is close upon three billions of dollars.
The comptroller of the currency, in his report
for 1908, placed the total banking power of the
United States at $17,642,000,000. His esti-
mate is probably low, for private banking
firms are estimated at a figure probably less
than half their true strength. Yet the figure
may be taken as a criterion.
The banking power under Morgan influ-
ence, then, not reckoning upon the ever-
spreading interest of the New York banks
in outlying states, is more than one-sixth
of the total banking power of the nation.
In 1890, the banking power of this country
was barely $5,000,000,000, according to Mul-
hall, the best accredited authority. To-day,
Mr. Morgan undoubtedly extends a more or
less direct influence over a banking power
more than half that of the Union only twenty
years ago.
Again, the banking power of the British
Empire to-day is reckoned by Mulhall at
$11, 100,000,000. Mr. Morgan's circle of bank-
ing empire is more than one-quarter as powerful
as that of all the British banks, from London to
Singapore — the banks that carry the major
part of the burden of the commercial activities
of the world.
Here, perhaps, one may dimly measure the
banking strength of this modern colossus.
I say dimly, because no man may say how
firmly the flimsy bonds may hold the subjects
of his dynasty in days of panic, or in days of
mounting personal ambitions. The National
City Bank, under the skilful management of
Mr. Stillman and Mr. Vanderlip, seems to-day
to be in perfect harmony with Mr. Morgan and
his plans. But it is hard to believe that this
tremendous bank, with its stiff traditions, its
haughty antipathies, its self-sufficiency, and its
self-esteem, has in any way shackled itself,
either to Mr. Morgan's chariot or to any other.
Similarly, the New York Life Insurance
Company is not a slave to the Morgan firm,
or to any other. Its liquid capital will follow,
perhaps, if the Morgan standard leads; but it
is impossible to believe that its board of trustees
can be driven, coerced, or even cajoled into
any course of action. There was a time
when more investments with the Morgan
stamp found their way into its coffers than good
judgment would have dictated; but that time
seems to have passed.
Nor can the funds of the Equitable be drawn
away into anything without the consent of its
policyholders, through the committees. Though
Mr. Morgan is to-day, by the purchase of a
majority of its stock from Mr. Ryan and the
Harriman estate, nominally its master, he can-
not command its funds. He must ask — he
may not order.
Yet, measuring his resources by the rule of
the day, he is the master of $3,000,000,000 or
funds. Those funds lie centralized, within
rifle-shot of his office. The Stock Exchange,
the pulse of the financial world, is just across
the street. He may, from his windows, look
into its interior. From his door, as he leaves,
he sees the Bank of Commerce, the First
National, and the Hanover. By telephone, he
can assemble at his table the heads of every
one of these great financial institutions within
ten minutes. He could do no more were he
the governor of a central bank, embracing
every one of them.
The financial power that lies beneath his hand
is as great as, if not greater than, the power of the
governor of the Bank of England or the gov-
ernor of the Bank of France. He does not
publish a rate of discount, as they do. But he
can, if he wish, in the midst of the wildest ,
boom ever conceived, stop the whirring '
wheels of the Wall Street ticker. The group
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12624
THE BUILDING OF A MONEY-TRUST
of men who gather to his call can, and do,
absolutely control the stock market destinies.
Money rates can be made what these men
please. Collateral may be and often is good or
bad, as these men say. Commercial credit
will expand and contract, in this, the only real
financial centre in the country, according as the
actions of these men dictate. The process is
not as direct as the flat making of a minimum
\ rate of discount — but it is not less sure.
Mr. Aldrich, the chairman of the Monetary
Commission and some other things, detailed
an interview which he had with Mr. Campbell,
the governor of the Bank of England. His
inquiry was:
" What do you do when you see that money
is going to be scarce?"
"We put the rate to 5 per cent.," said Mr.
Campbell, "and that checks discounting, and
drives gold into our vaults."
"But suppose it is not enough. Suppose
that the gold won't come. What then?"
"We put the rate to 6 per cent.," said Mr.
Campbell.
"And if that does not accomplish it ?"
"We put the rate to 7 per cent.!"
"And then ?"
"If necessary, we would put the rate to 10
per cent.," said the governor of the Bank of
England, "and that would draw gold out of
the earth!"
That is the English way. It has always
worked, even in the height of the panic of 1907.
What is the American way?
v In truth, there is none. If we make a noise
like a panic, loud enough, long enough, and
genuine enough to be heard in Paris and Lon-
don, after a while we get the gold we need
so desperately; but we get it only as the foreign
bankers dole it out to us, or sell it at good
profits. Meantime, our banks shut their doors,
so far as discounts go. At 125 per cent., per-
haps, you can borrow on call in Wall Street,
if your collateral is the best; but as to borrow-
ing for commerce — it's an old story; and this
is not the place to tell it over again.
Mr. Morgan would remedy this. He believes
that the group of banking interests he has
welded together can remedy it. Individually,
their voices hardly carry across the Atlantic
until they are screaming in panic; united, he
thinks they can make their whispers heard in
Lombard Street. It may be so; it is too early
to guess. There are more than one of the
men who are working hand-in-glove to carry
out the Morgan plans who will not do much
more than venture a guess to this effect:
"I don't know; but Morgan knows — ask
him!"
The financial world is divided fairly into three
parties on this matter. Many there are who see
it from the Morgan standpoint, without reserve.
"It is our one protection against panic!"
they say, and believe it
The second class, larger in numbers but not
so influential in the world or so wealthy, oppose
the Morgan idea vehemently. To them, it
seems oligarchy and plutocracy gone mad.
"The vote of Messrs. Morgan, Baker, and
Stillman will be the power of financial life and
death not only within the narrow bounds of
Wall Street, but clear to San Francisco!" said
the president of a New York bank. "And not
only that, but our eggs are all in one basket -
with a vengeance — and nobody outside the ring
can get near enough to watch the basket!"
The third group, greatest in numbers, least
in financial importance, cares nothing either
way. They think the grouping of banking
interests tends to strength; but they idly fear
that perhaps it may also tend to foster specula-
tion, expansion, and other sources of weakness.
Few believe that this group of great men would
ever deliberately "play" the country up and J
down for their own ends; but no man can deny J
that if they did want to do it, the power lies in
their hands.
Nobody of much sense believes that there
is the least danger that the New York Life,
or the Equitable Life, runs any chance of being
"plundered," "loaded," or manipulated in any
other way at the hands of the Morgan firm.
Even if the desire or need existed, he would be,
indeed, a hardy individual who would attempt
to draw the great life-insurance companies into
the field of exploitation even by the length
of a single step. McCall is dead; Alexander is
dead; McCurdy is obliterated; Hyde is an alien,
and confessedly a lonesome one. There is to
be no to-morrow to that story.
No study of this question, however slight,
should ignore two factors that might well
escape the passing glance, and that seem to have
escaped, so far, editorial comment. The first
of these is the tendency to relax the reserve law.
The law of the country declares that the banks
in New York must keep twenty-five per cent,
of deposits in cash in hand. The law makes
no exception.
The First National Bank, Mr. Morgan, and
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MEN IN ACTION
12625
many other authorities frankly avow that this
is foolishness. They ask the pointed question:
"What are reserves for?" In times of stress,
they do not hesitate to call upon their banks to
pay out cash beyond the legal limit. Whether
they are right or wrong is matter of debate.
That they are in defiance of the written law is
not a matter of debate. The growth of the
banking power of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Baker
means the growth of the tendency toward free-
dom in reserves.
The second factor is the gradual national 1
movement toward the ramification of New
York banking power throughout the United |
States. Go into any of the Western cities that
are growing, and you will find a strong con-
viction — in some cases established certainty —
that this or that bank of the city is directly coiv
trolled by the National City Bank of New York,
or some other of the central Wall Street banks.
The Stillman bank has been the most ambitious
and the most open of the propagandists of
this new idea. It frankly sends its own men
into positions of banking power in the Western
cities. Very openly, indeed, it has identified
itself directly with the interests of many strong
communities beyond the rivers.
To trace the ramifications of such a power
as this is quite a hopeless task. In this article,
they are but hinted at.
[Other articles will deal with the pending Copper consolidation and the recent community of
interests involving the Western Union, Postal Telegraph, American Telephone and Telegraph,
and half a dozen independent telephone companies.]
MEN IN ACTION
TEN years ago there were two families
in Chicago who moved, one going
upon a Government homestead in
South Dakota, the other into the eight-room
cottage vacated by the first family. The
families were of the same size and ages,
approximately, each having eight children,
the oldest being girls of twelve and fourteen.
The capital and earning capacity were also
about the same. They were alike dependent
on their industry for support.
There being no shelter upon the land, the
Dakota family built for themselves a home
from field rocks, largely with their own hands,
expending $100 (received for a right-of-way
across a corner of their land) for lumber, win-
dows, doors, and shingles. Their food supply
was considerably increased by the fish caught
by the children and the ducks and prairie-
chickens shot, and by plums, grapes, and cher-
ries picked. Their cash earnings fell far below
those of the city family in Chicago, but they
had no debt, no rent to pay, nor taxes. Nor did
they have to stand always with pocketbook in
hand. One neighbor who had raised more
potatoes than he could market brought them a
full supply, both for food and seed; other neigh-
bors loaned them sitting hens; another, who
needed help in his haying, gave a cow with her
calf in exchange for work; and still another
gave a grist of wheat for help in the harvest
field, and later, a brood sow, whose litter of
pigs netted the new owner more than $100 in
four months. Fuel was to be had for the
gathering along the river.
The family raised, with little labor, all the
melons that they and their friends could eat;
also several bushels of beans, corn in abun-
dance, and wagon-loads of rutabagas. The
boys soon learned to ride ponies — one was
got in exchange for a bicycle — and before
long they were in demand for herding sheep
and cattle. The elder soon earned enough
to start him well on his way through college.
The older girls returned to school, all being
"given their time," as the saying is, but not
much more.
The outcome is that the oldest is a happily
married young mother; two have graduated
with honors from the University of Chicago;
three are now in the high school, making their
home with the rest of the family in the cottage
which they vacated ten years ago and now
own, without the encumbrance, which then
almost equaled its value, but which its rentals
have lifted. This temporary stay in their city
home, for the sake of educational advantages,
is made possible by the income from the farm
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12626
MEN IN ACTION
which is now well improved with buildings, an
artesian well, fruit and shade trees; and the
return to which all the family look forward
with pleasure.
The family which remained in Chicago is
still living from hand to mouth. The head of
the family is without work most of the time;
the children (the unmarried girls as well as
the boys) all work in factories and sweat-shops,
glad erf the chance.
Recently, when these young bread-winners
were paying all but a few dollars of the earn-
ings of an entire week for a month's rent, they
said with choking voices that they had to have
a roof over their heads whether they had any-
thing to eat or not. Referring to their fourteen-
year-old brother, they said that he would soon
be through with his schooling, and then he,
also, could begin to earn a little. Not one of
the six older children had finished the eighth
grade before they had been forced to join in
the support of the family. A ten-year-old
child is sickly and stunted — as all of them
are, when compared with the children of the
country family.
This is their physical condition. Morally,
while the country family's children are am-
bitious and carry off respect and honors wher-
ever they go, the city family's children are dis-
couraged and without high purpose. They
have never known the joyous buoyancy of
childhood close to nature, or watched its birds
and brooks, its sunshine and shadow, its bud- •
ding beauty of golden harvests, with which
the Dakota home was so richly favored.
II
The wife of Governor Lippett, of Rhode
Island, had a deaf child. Patiently she strove
from infancy to teach it to speak, and to take
its place among other school children in school
life. Success crowned her efforts. Another
mother, at about the same time, took the same
course with her child, and with equal success.
In Philadelphia, two sisters, Miss Emma
and Miss Mary Garrett, became deeply inter-
ested in this revelation of the possibilities of
teaching the deaf to speak while very young.
They worked earnestly to show mothers what
could be done for their deaf children. Few
would believe them, and they were regarded
as dreamers.
But they persisted, and finally interested
enough people to enable them to open a small
school in the outskirts of Philadelphia. This
was done in February, 18912, with eleven chil-
dren enrolled.
Their success was so great that the Pennsyl-
vania Legislature made the little school a state
institution in June of the following year.
Pennsylvania is, at present, the only state
which offers to its deaf children the possibility of
learning to speak at the natural age, for this
home takes pupils from two to eight years old.
If the child does not come at two, it must stay
a correspondingly longer time. Six years are
required for its instruction in speech and lip
residing. No signs are ever permitted.
Miss Emma Garrett taught only a year
and a half after starting the school. She
died in July, 1893. Her sister, Mary, was
thus forced to shoulder the whole responsibility
of the work.
Two beautiful cottages, which to the ordinary
observer would appear to be the spacious dwell-
ings of private families, are the homes of sixty-
five little deaf children, who are learning the
same lessons that other children do, reciting in
their classes, chattering to each other in their
play, conversing brightly and happily with their
teachers at meals, talking over the seeds and
plants which they cultivate in the little garden
assigned to each child, and playing games as
others do.
After calling one day at Miss Garrett's home,
a visitor stepped on the porch to leave. One
of the deaf boys was there. In a low, gentle
voice, Miss Garrett said:
" Edgar, will you tell the coachman to bring
the carriage?"
Quick as a flash the boy started off to do her
bidding. The same boy, soon after, left the
home to learn the machinist's trade in a shop,
earning enough from the beginning to be self-
supporting, and to-day he is an engineer at a
fine salary in a large hotel.
Several of Miss Garrett's boys have charge
of extensive farms, and are interested and
happy.
At eight years of age the children in the home
are ready to attend the public schools. The
majority of these children come from very
poor families, but such care is given to every
detail of their education that no child from the
best home or school is better equipped with
the little refinements that make the usages of
society than are these little deaf children. No
child who has taken the complete course in
Miss Garrett's school has failed to "make
good."
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it demands the smallest amount of though
from the owner. That is our idea of a luxurious car.
THE PIERCE ARROW MOTOR CAR COMPANY, Buffalo, N. Y.
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The patented Victor tfoo&e^neck
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The patented Victor goose-
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The sweetest, clearest tone ever heard
in any musical instrument.
"What makes the Victor tone so sweet, clear and natural, and of
such splendid volume?*1 people ask as they become captivated by the
unequaled Victor tone-quality.
The goose-neck construction of the tone-arm is largely responsible.
A little thing in itself, but a great big thing in what it accomplishes.
It puts the weight of the sound-box in the proper place and at the
proper angle to get the best results from every record,
Its flexibility enables the reproducing point to follow the lines of the
sound-waves so closely that every detail is reproduced with absolute
fidelity.
And besides improving the tone, the goose-neck adds to the
convenience oi using the Victor.
This exclusive patented goose-neck is only one of the many
valuable features that help to make the Victor the
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If you have never heard a Victor oi the present time, kq today
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The World's Work
WALTER H. PAGE, Editor
CONTENTS FOR MARCH, 1910
THE BALLINGER INVESTIGATION JOINT-COMMITTEE - Frontispiece
THE MARCH OF EVENTS— An Editorial Interpretation - - - 12629
(With full-page portraits of Representative John W. Weeks, Governor A. O. Eberhart, Mr. Henry S. Graves,
Judge Harry Olson, The Municipal Bench of Chicago, Mr. Clarence Mackay, Mr. A. R. Dugmore, Mr. George
Bernard Shaw ; the President and the House of Governors \ Aeroplane Flights at Los Angeles ; Measuring the
Altitude of the Flights ; Campaign Publicity in the English Elections, and the New Pennsylvania Terminal.)
THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND THE MEN OF THE AIR
A NATIONAL OPPORTUNITY — A BUSINESS POSTAL ART PROSPECTS IN AMERICA
DeSSeRVATION PROGRESS IS AMERICA A ^^^t^^Zl
STACKING THE CARDS IN THE WALL STREET ABSTRACT SCIENCE AT CONCRETE WORK
GAME WHY IS THE CRIMINAL ?
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEOPLE 12648
WHEN BURGLARY. INSURANCE IS GOOD - - - - - 12652
SIGN-POSTS ON THE ROAD TO RUIN . - - - 12654
RAISING MONEY Ifc^THE HOME TOWN ----- 12656
HAPPY HUMANITY
II. Its Promising Plan in the New World Frederik Van Eeden 12658
GIFFORD PINCHOT, THE AWAKENER OF THE NATION
Walter H. Page ^2662
THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE (Illustrated)
Herbert N.'Casson 12669
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
III. New York in War Time (Illustrated) - - Elihu Vedder 12684
A COURT THAT DOES ITS JOB' - - William Bayard Hale 12695
OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS (Illustrated) ,.; .
Thomas R. Dawley, Jr. 12704
TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS (Illustrated)
Walter H. Page 127 15
THE RULERS OF THE WIRES - - - " - - CM. Keys 12726
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
V. How to Regulate Corporations - - - James J. Hill 12730
TERMS: $3.00 a year; single copies, 25 cents. For Foreign Postage add $1.28; Canada, 60 cents.
Published monthly. Copyright, 1910, by Doubleday, Page 8c Company
All rights reserved. Entered at the Post-office at New York, N. Y., as second-class mail matter.
Country Life in America The Garden Magazine-Farming
iSil Hcywerth Butfrfftng DOUBL1LDAY, PAGE* & COMPANY, 133 Ea«t Sixteenth Street
F. N. Doubleday, President H.AS™ototon,E } Vice-Presidenta H. W. Lamer, Secretary S. A. Evebitt, Treasurer
J,
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.1-f^rwuE5f>
'«*,
WORLEfcWORK
MARCH, 1910
Volume XIX
Number 5
Gbe flDarcb of Events
THE Liberal Budget which, on appeal,
the British people have declared shall
be enacted over the veto of the Lords,
is a scheme of taxation the most advanced in
its justice and scientific character yet estab-
lished by a great nation.
The result of the election was not so clear
as it might have been, but on one point no
one questions it: The Budget prevails.
The British people, then, accept a scheme
of taxation which includes ideas that, pro-
posed in America, would startle the whole
country. It not only taxes incomes, and
taxes them progressively (i.e., the more the
income, the heavier the tax), but it makes a
distinction between earned and unearned
incomes, taxing the latter higher. It taxes
inheritances progressively up to 25 per cent."
one-fourth of the estate. It taxes (to use
the Single-Tax phrase) the unearned incre-
ment in land values; that is, if land increases
in value because population has gathered
near it, that increase in value belongs not to
the landlord but to the people who have made
it. And it taxes mineral rights, apart from and
over and above the land containing minerals.
The Budget is the first tentative fiscal
expression of a social revolution. All who fol-
lowed the campaign preceding the elections
know how bold became the statement by the
Liberal leaders of their intention to go on with
the work of reforming the whole structure of
British society. There was involved in the
election not only the immediate question of
the Budget, but those of the rights, not to say
the very existence, of the House of Lords;
Copyright, 1910, by Doubleday,
the proposal to tax food under the guise of
"protection"; and Home Rule for Ireland.
The issues were constitutional, economic,
social, and religious. The bitterness with
which they were fought was unprecedented
in English Elections.
The war will go on as bitterly as before.
The social temper of the Englishman is not
easy to understand. It is difficult to believe
that he is in the deadly earnest he really is in,
because he does not do the things that we in
his place should do, if we were in earnest.
He won't allow the Lords to veto a House of
Commons bill, but we shall find that he has
not the slightest intention of abolishing the
House of Lords. The Englishman hates
the privileges of aristocracy and he means
to take them away, but he has more than a
sneaking fondness for the aristocrat. He is
a Socialist — the whole British people are
Socialists at heart — but he is not a democrat.
It is not beyond reason to predict that, as
an outcome of the election, the House of Lords
will be strengthened, instead of being abolished.
It is possible that Mr. Asquith will require the
King to flood the House of Lords with new
peers, as King William IV. and Lord Grey did
in 1832. It is more likely that some scheme for
the reform of the hereditary chamber will be
devised. The financial veto may be definitely
abolished; its numbers may be reduced and
membership made to depend on something
more than the circumstance of having been,
as Mr. Lloyd-George puts it, "the first of a
litter." But the House of Lords will not be
done away with.
Pfegtt&Co. AU rights reserved.
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MR. HENRY S. GRAVES, CHIEF FORESTER
WHO HAS RESIGNED AS DIRECTOR OF THE YALE FOREST SCHOOL TO
SUCCEED MR. GIFFORD PINCHOT AS HEAD OF THE FOREST SERVICE
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REPRESENTATIVE JOHN W. WEEKS OF MASSACHUSETTS
CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICES AND POST ROADS, WHICH IS ASKED TO
GIVE THE COUNTRY A BUSINESSLIKE ADMINISTRATION OF THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT
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GOVERNOR ADOLPH O. EBERHART, OF MINNESOTA
THE SUCCESSOR OF GOVERNOR JOHNSON. HE IS THE FIRST GOVERNOR TO CALL A STATE CONSERVATION MEETING
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CHIEF-JUSTICE HARRY OLSON OF THE MUNICIPAL COURT OF CHICAGO
WHOSE TWENTY-EIGHT JUDGES ADMINISTER SWIFT AND SURE JUSTICE ON THE MODERN BUSINESS PLAN
[Ste "A Court that Dots its Jot," **£* **W
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i — Oscar M. Torrison, a — William \V. Maxwell, 3 — Arnold Heap, 4 — Freeman K. Blake, 5 — William N. Gemmill, 6 — McKenzie
Cleland, 7— John G. Scovel, 8— John W. Houston, 9— Stephen A. Foster, 10— Hosea W. Wells, 11— John H. Hume, 12— Man-
cha Bruggemeyer, 13— Max Eberhardt, 14— Hugh R. Stewart, 15— Henry C. Beitler, 16— Edwin K. Walker, 17 — Charles
N. Goodnow, 18— John R. Newcomer, 10— Isidore H. Himes, ao— Michael F. Girten, a 1— Edward A. Dicker, as — Judson F.
Going, 23— Frederick L. Fake, Jr., 34— William M. Cottrcll, as— Sheridan E. Fry, 26— Joseph Z. Uhler, 37— Frank Crowe.
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MR. A. RADCLYFFE DUGMORE
USING THE TELEPHOTO OUTFIT WITH WHICH HE SECURED SUCH
EXTRAORDINARY PHOTOGRAPHS OF WILD ANIMALS IN EAST AFRICA
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CAMPAIGN PUBLICITY DURING THE ENGLISH ELECTIONS
POSTERS ON A SAILBOAT THAT WAS USED TO TRANSPORT VISITORS TO NELSON'S FLAGSHIP, " VICTORY "
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A NATIONAL OPPORTUNITY
12643
A NATIONAL OPPORTUNITY-A BUSINESS
POSTAL DEPARTMENT
THE World's Work seriously pleads
for a thorough reorganization of that
ancient political institution, The Post Office
Department We ask the Committee on Post
Offices and Post Roads, now considering
the situation, to use the information already
in the hands of the Department, and the
information secured by the various Congres-
sional Committees, and to secure any addi-
tional information necessary to remodel the
work of the Post Office, according to the
general intent of the Overstreet Reorganization
Bill introduced into the House of Repre-
sentatives in January, 1909, and put it on a
thoroughly efficient basis. We use the word
efficient, because we claim that it is not efficient
to appoint employees for anything but their
efficiency; it is not efficient to carry documents
for legislators, seeds, speeches, and goods of
various kinds free with no bookkeeping charge
to the person or the department served; it is
not efficient to pay for any commodity, trans-
portation, labor, or service more than it is
worth in the world markets, because certain
individuals are thereby benefited.
The President and the present Congress now
have an opportunity to place the whole country
under a debt of gratitude by enacting a new
Jaw for a businesslike administration under a
non-political head, a Director of Posts, capable
of conducting in a modern and effective way
a $240,000,000 business.
It is most desirable to press this matter
now upon public attention because the Post
Roads Committee of the House is about to
introduce, it is believed, new postal legislation.
Fortunately, too, the chairman of this most
important Committee, Mr. John W. Weeks
of Massachusetts, is a competent business man,
an experienced banker, and a gentleman of
the highest reputation; and associated with
him is a committee who want to see the right
thing done. This, therefore, is the time to
get our antiquated postal laws changed for
the benefit of all the people.
We attempt no discussion of the statements
made about postal affairs by President Taft
in his recent message. It is an example of
the uncertain way the business is conducted
that the Post Office Department should fur-
nish to the President figures so grossly mis-
leading and incorrect. The single statement
that it costs over nine cents a pound . to
carry 200 pounds, of second-class mail to
Chicago, when we know that the President
himself could make this journey on a first-
class ticket for $18, is evidence of its absurd-
ity. After some knowledge of the facts as
they are, we are willing to say:
(1). That the cost of carrying and handling
second-class matter is at least 80 per cent
less than the figures given in the President's
message.
(2). That the amount of second-class matter
carried does not unfavorably affect the Post
Office, is proved by the fact that in the
year ending June 30, 1908, the weight of
second-class matter decreased approximately
17,000,000 pounds, and the Post Office loss
increased during the same period $18,000,000.
(3.) That in Canada, a country of magnifi-
cent distances and' "long hauls," the price for
carrying second-class matter is one-quarter
what our country charges, and the business is
profitable, though we confess that we are not
familiar with the mail payments to the rail-
roads. Incidentally the Canadian Post Office
Department last year showed a surplus of
$809,000.
(4). That the proposition seriously to raisethe
second-class rate will cause loss of revenue to
the Government — the deficiency will increase,
as it did in 1908, because it will drive the
"short hauls" to the freight and express lines,
and the Government will get only the unprofit-
able part of the trade.
(5). That, properly managed, second-class
matter can be carried for about one cent a
pound, and, if encouraged, would yield very
greatly increased first-class matter, which, if
properly managed, would pay the Government
a handsome profit.
(6). If the books of the department were
properly and efficiently kept, they would show
a profit of $11,000,000, outside of the loss on
rural free delivery, and the rural free delivery
would pay for itself, if the carriers were forced
to turn into the Government treasury the
money that they do now, or could, earn by
carrying packages weighing more than four
pounds. On the other hand it has been
repeatedly stated that the Government pays
extravagantly high prices to the railroads
for transportation. We have seen no direct
proof that this is true — a business adminis-
tration would discover the facts and regulate
the error, if any.
The rates of third-class matter should be
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
feet square. Though the aeroplane was travel-
ing forty-five miles an hour, the officer scored
three hits out of the five efforts.
II
The machines that aroused such enthusiasm
at Los Angeles are much the same as those
that stirred the French nation at Rheims last
year. It is chiefly the flyers themselves that
have improved. Hammondsport, where Cur-
tiss first built his fliers, has, however, added
a new machine — the first American mono-
plane — to those already in use. By increas-
ing the pressure on one side of the plane and
decreasing it on the other, in conjunction with
the use of the tail, the Wrights found them-
selves enabled to maintain a lateral balance
in the air. They accomplished this change
of pressure by warping the wings of their
aeroplane. Others following them in theory
achieved a similar result by having hinged tips
to the wings, which could be "flapped." Mr.
A. L. Pfitzner, the builder of the new mono-
plane, has still another method. The ends of
the wings are fitted with sliding panels, which
can be pushed out to give more lifting surface.
Flying meets are taking their place along
with automobile races, and there may soon be
as many types of aeroplanes as there are
makes of automobiles — for, if the courts
uphold the Wright Brothers as the discoverers
of the theory, some arrangement will probably
be made whereby all these kinds of machines
with their different contrivances may be built.
ART PROSPECTS IN AMERICA
TWO recent German visitors to the United
States, Dr. Friedlander and Dr. Justi,
directors respectively of the Kaiser Friedrich
Museum and the National Gallery, Berlin,
went home to spread the news that the United
States is become a home of art.
"I desire," said Dr. Justi, "to be quoted in the
strongest possible language as a convert from the
belief that art collecting in America is the fad of
millionaire ignoramuses. I must henceforth beg to
disagree cordially with some of my European con-
freres who think that the denuding of European art
collections for the benefit of America and Ameri-
cans is to cast pearls before swine. I make bold to
say that the present-day artistic taste of Americans,
so far as I had opportunity to observe it, will rank
in all respects with European communities."
Dr. Friedlander's eulogy is statistical; he sur-
prised himself by counting more Rembrandts
in America than Germany possesses. The
surprise of our European friends is naturally
gratifying, though it is no news to us that we
have a great many splendid pictures here.
Professor Justi uses nothing short of superla-
tives in describing the collections of Messrs.
Morgan, Frick, Widener, Payne, Johnson,
and of Mrs. Havemeyer, Mrs. Simpson, and
Mrs. Gardner. He was not more struck with
the magnificence of the works which these
collectors possess than by the fact that they
themselves, men and women, enjoyed their
treasures with intelligent enthusiasm. They
were not vulgar hoarders — hoarders of pre-
cious things which their money enabled them
to buy on the advice of some one else — but
loving appreciators of their own well-informed
purchases.
Professor Justi does not attempt to certify
that artistic taste is as widely diffused in the
United States as in Europe. It is not. Nor,
in so young a country, could it be. There is
not lacking, however, a certain comfort even
for him who remembers that an artistic glory
must lie not in the ownership of many valu-
able paintings by the rich people of a land, but
in the universal love of art on the part of all its
citizens. The comfort lies in the fact that the
private collections of the modern Lorenzos
are certain, sooner or later, to find their way to
public museums, where they become the posses-
sion of all, ministering to the general knowl-
edge and love of the beautiful and tending to
inspire widespread desire to create new beauty.
The magnificence of the private art collec-
tions in America has become a matter pi inter-
national celebrity. The ignorance of the
majority of Americans will cease to be an inter-
national reproach when a few years have done
their certain work in bequeathing those col-
lections to the public.
IS AMERICA A CONVERSATIONAL DESERT?
ON the other hand, another foreigner
assails our culture, on the ground that
we have lost the art of conversation. We do
not converse; we only talk. Our society is
not graced by the presence of those leisurely
spirits who, when a subject is started, are willing
and able to follow its ramifications, play with
it, embroider it with sentiment or wit. State-
ment, question, and answer is the staple of our
talk. We exchange information; we rehearse
our personal experiences in each other's ears.
So some of us do; so do some of every nation
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WHY IS THE CRIMINAL?
12647
under heaven* Mr. Dickinson, of the Cam-
bridge (England) Review was a little unfor-
tunate in the company he fell in with on his
recent American trip, that is all. We do not
recognize his picture of the silent or altogether
matter-of-fact group of Americans as a people
contrasting with the loquaciously graceful
Englishman. There abound among us circles
in which conversation, cultured, kindly, witty,
thoughtful, and enkindling, is habitual, pre-
cisely as it is among people of the same class
the world over.
ABSTRACT SCIENCE AT CONCRETE WORK
A SUMMER tourist ten years ago visited
the biological laboratory at Woods
Hole, Mass., and amused himself watching
a man wagging a finger attached to a measur-
ing machine. It was one of the weird per-
formances of those crack-brained Germans
who acknowledged Dr. Jacques Loeb as their
chief. To-day the existence and effect of the
toxin of fatigue is a recognized fact of which
physicians and sociologists take account; it
is a fact gaining recognition as a powerful
economic argument for shorter hours of labor,
especially among women workers, and, as is
attested by a brief of several hundred printed
pages filed recently in the Supreme Court of
Illinois, it is a fact of which law must take
account.
Professor Loeb has just been called to the
head of a new department created by the
directors of the Rockefeller Institute for
Medical Research in New York — the Depart-
ment of Experimental Biology. The Rocke-
feller Institute is not a school of instruction
nor a seat of academic investigation; it is set,
with all the earnestness of life and death, on
a search for the means of curing and prevent-
ing disease. The illustrious biologist called
to the head of the new department has never,
so far as known, given thought to any of the
problems of medicine, nor is he expected to
do so now. He is the foremost experimenter
with the protoplasmic cell. He tries the
effect of light and other stimuli on life tissues;
he fertilizes eggs artificially, and makes dead
hearts beat, and rigs up nerves of wet strings;
he makes chemistry exhibit phenomena which
we commonly attribute to will, reason, or
instinct.
What has all this to do with curing disease?
It has this to do with it — that in order to
preserve life, strengthen it, fortify it, and
defend it from its enemies, it would be an
advantage to know more about what life is.
Not that Professor Loeb can tell very much
about it; the secret retreats faster than the
searchers can follow it. But the biologists
have succeeded in learning many curious and
interesting facts about the behavior of life-
cells, facts which may be also useful in the
fight against disease.
WHY IS THE CRIMINAL?
A GREAT need of the modern science
of criminology is a larger volume of
facts regarding the biological history of crim-
inals. This need the American Institute of
Criminal Law and Criminology has planned
to meet. A committee, headed by Professor
Ross, of the University of Wisconsin, and
aided by such men as Professors Royce, Mun-
sterberg, Franz Boas, and Dr. Arthur Jelly,
has drawn up and recommended a scheme for
recording data concerning criminals, and the
recommendation has already found favor even
at the hands of busy judges.
The* scheme is exhaustive. It contem-
plates that criminals appearing before the
courts should be examined medically; that all
physical and mental facts obtainable regard-
ing the parents and grandparents of each be
set down, as well as regarding his ante-natal
period, infancy, and youth, and regarding his
environment and associations as an adult.
A glance at the accompanying diagram will
show the simplicity of the hereditary record
DIAGRAM SHOWING TAINT II* A CRIMINAL'S BLOOD
suggested. This particular chart gives at a
glance the story of a boy criminal. The chart
shows that he had a sister, now dead, concern-
ing whom nothing is known; one normal
brother, and one epileptic brother. His father
and his father's brother were normal, and are
described as being "bright mentally ;" that is,
probably, unusually bright. His paternal
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THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEOPLE
grandparents were normal, the grandfather
being regarded as "bright mentally." The
boy criminal's mother was normal, and so were
her two sisters. The mother is described as a
genius. But the maternal grandfather appears
as an alcoholic criminal, a desperado. Here
is the taint in the boy's blood. It skipped the
second generation, but appeared in him.
While this part of the work is easy enough,
the full plan of the Institute of Criminology
makes it necessary to attach special trained
examiners to courts. The Municipal Court of
Chicago has asked the city to provide these
and allow the introduction of the system.
The hope of the judges of this progressive body
is that the data secured will enable them to deal
with offenders in accordance with the physical
and social conditions of each case, besides
contributing in general to our knowledge of the
cause of criminality and of its cure. The
business of justice is not so much to punish
crime as to prevent it.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEOPLE
IT IS difficult to formulate or clearly to
describe a wave of popular feeling, espe-
cially when it finds expression and denial
in partisan phrases and when it rests on a
popular fear rather than on specific reasoning.
This is an effort to reduce to as clear expression
as possible the undoubtedly increasing public
fear lest Mr. Taft's Administration per-
manently lose the great popularity with which
it began.
Mr. Taft has himself remarked that the
President has come to be the only direct
representative of all the people in the National
Government; for Congress has become more
and more the representative of districts, of
States, of sections of the Union, and in part of
special interests, and is, therefore, made up of
many conflicting units. It is to the President
that the whole people look for political
advance.
And, when he came into this place of leader-
ship, they looked to him with unusual confi-
dence. They had an eager expectation and
gave him a good will that matched his own
amiability. Every faction of his own party
proudly voted for him — there were, in fact,
no factions then — and many thousands of
Democrats as well who lacked confidence in
their own party's leadership. No man in
recent times has gone into the White House
with so nearly a universal trust of the people.
But now at the end of a year his party is
divided into fierce factions, his well-nigh
universal popularity has waned; and the con-
viction is general that the faction dominant
in Congress will not enact the legislation that
he desires — will betray him and leave him
to take the blame which they deserve but
which he cannot escape.
He made a logical and well-thought-out
plan for his Administration. He showed
courage in immediately calling for a revision
of the tariff. He clearly defined the scope
of revision to which he and his party were
committed — a reduction of duties to the
point where protection should be given to
offset the difference in the cost of manufactures
here and abroad. The party was as clearly
committed as he was. He worked with its
leaders, who were in honor bound to carry
out this programme. But they were not
sincere. They betrayed the cause to which
they were committed. They threw to the
winds the principle of revision laid down in
the platform and expounded by him. The
old scramble for favors disgraced the first
weary summer of his Administration. They
gave him a bill to sign that did not keep their
promises and he signed it.
He contended for a better and more sincere
revision — too late in the game. Neverthe-
less the people respected his sincerity while
they regretted his yielding. But they saw
very clearly that these leaders of the party
could not be trusted.
Yet they accepted the unsatisfactory result
without severe personal criticism of him;
and they said: "Now the President sees that
these leaders do not represent the conscience
and sincerity of the party; and henceforth
he will not yield to them." They hoped
that he had opened the way to a shifting of
leadership; and they still kept a high expecta-
tion of his Administration.
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THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEOPLE
12049
If, after the long labor and small results
of the extra session, the Republican masses
of the whole country could have voted on
this question — " Shall Mr. Aldrich and Mr.
Cannon be retained as leaders in Congress?"
nobody doubts what their answer would have
been. But under our system there was no
way for the people to express themselves
except through the press; and in that way
they have expressed themselves very plainly.
And now the fear is well-nigh universal that
they will betray him again — that they reckon
on betraying him and count upon his strong
sense of party loyalty to prevent a breach with
him. They have so dealt with other Presidents.
Therefore the people fear that the President
is fast reaching a place where the ways part.
He must decide between party regularity and
the leadership of the people.
The "old leaders" are not only Mr. Aldrich
and Mr. Cannon, who are good symbols as
well as strong personalities. They are all the
men in their party who have their point-of-
view; and it is not so much they as their point-
of-view that arouses popular suspicion and
indignation. They stand for the undue influ-
ence of wealth on government. That's the
gist of the whole matter. And to keep this
undue influence they do too much of the public
business privately. They use party and Con-
gressional machinery to keep the people's
hands off the people's business.
Nor is it personal animosity to Mr. Aldrich
or to Mr. Cannon that so often brings their
names into angry controversy. It is the
methods that they stand for. These methods
are just as objectionable when they are called
by the name of the Postmaster-General, or by
the name of the Secretary of the Interior. The
people had as lief have Conservation from Mr.
BalUnger's hands as from Mr. Pinchot's,
just as they would rather have the square deal
from Mr. Taft than any other man. It is
the matter not the man that arouses continuous
approval or continuous disapproval. The
thing that is called "stand-pattism," or
reactionism, or special privilege — that's the
thing that is objectionable. And it is just
as objectionable when it is called "party
regularity" or "due regard for business
interests."
The people, of course, make hasty judg-
ments and sometimes (for short periods)
wrong judgments. There is something terrible
and cruel in many a wave of popular disap-
proval that sweeps over the land and buries
good men as well as bad — men, who, if th*
public had better understood them, might
have served them well. There was such a
wave in Mr. Cleveland's day and the name
of this great man was for a time a reproach.
But, after all, it is public opinion that is
dominant in our democracy, and all persons
in authority must deal with it
Now, right or wrong, there is no doubt
that public opinion has fast withdrawn
approval from the Administration since last
summer.
For the people feel that the Administration
has gone out of touch with them. They are
saying that the Cabinet has not a single man
who has ever held an elective office of impor-
tance, not a man except the non-political,
venerable Secretary of Agriculture who knows
the people or whom the people know.
The President has able counsel — a famous
Pennsylvania lawyer, a successful New York
lawyer, an, able Tennessee lawyer, a St. Louis
lawyer, another lawyer from the state of Wash-
ington- These gentlemen have all won dis-
tinction as counsel for corporations and
railroads. They are serving ably — as coun-
sel. But the people, right or wrong, feel that
as counsel for their Government a fear that
these gentlemen may not know their case —
that their point-of-view may, with perfect
honor and with all good intentions, be a
point-of-view out of sympathy with the people.
But of this the people would perhaps have
never thought but for other facts; for they
do not care who sits at the Cabinet table if
all goes well. When they elected Mr. Taft
they understood that the tariff would really
be revised, that the Conservation policy
would be sympathetically developed, that
new regulative acts would be passed. On
any other understanding even Mr. Bryan
might have been elected. Certainly neither
Mr. Aldrich nor Mr. Cannon could have been
elected, nor Mr. Ballinger nor Mr. Knox,
whatever they might have promised.
Mr. Taft strove to hold his party together
in the effort to revise the tariff. But the
effort failed. The party 'split and the tariff
was not seriously revised. The failure was,
therefore, two-fold. That effort, then, had
as well be abandoned. Still he seems to
cling to the hope of holding the party together.
Of such an effort there would yet be no intelli-
gent criticism if there were a reasonable hope
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THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEOPLE
of the party's becoming a successful instru-
ment for serving the people.
But the people now see — or think they
see — that the dominant wing of it will treat
his programme for Conservation and his
programme for the regulation of corporations
as they treated his programme for tariff
revision. The bills that embody his recom-
mendations have been pigeonholed, even in
the House, and the chairmen of committees
have substituted bills of their own for them
— bills that are very different. They may
give him only the appearance of good legis-
lation— or no legislation at all. The fear,
therefore, is that his very concern for party
regularity and unity will be used by them to
defeat his programme.
If the party's leaders in Congress again
give him what they want instead of what the
people want, and if the President again sub-
mits to such treatment, his party will be
hopelessly split, his policies will rest in pigeon-
holes, and his chance of leadership will be
gone.
Then what? A Democratic House without
constructive leadership and a two-year's party
deadlock in Congress, and the old low wrang-
ling level of politics, his policies still pigeon-
holed, and his Administration ineffective for
positive work.
And after that? Not even its ablest counsel
can then save the Administration from the
popular judgment of failure, high as its aims
are and well-laid as its programme was.
And after that? A Presidential campaign,
in which great bitterness will be stirred up.
It may be that Mr. Roosevelt will commit
the personal mistake of permitting his friends
to nominate him. Or, if a man suspected of
the point-of-view of the Standpatters should be
nominated by the regular Republicans, the
Insurgents will bolt. If an Insurgent should
be nominated, the Standpatters would with-
hold their support. And although the Demo-
crats seem to have no leader, they will have
hope of winning against such a division of the
Republican party. Any of these possible
events means political chaos and low wrang-
ling and class divisions and all the unfor-
tunate demoralization that attended Presi-
dential elections twenty and thirty years ago;
and any of them means a defeat of the Presi-
dent's programme.
Already the unhappy controversy about
Conservation has cost the Administration
dear. It arose as soon as Mr. Ballinger was
appointed Secretary of the Interior. The
President, in a judicial, kindly mood, patiently
tried the plan of conciliation, as he has since
tried it with the divisions of his party. It
failed. There were unreconcilable forces at
work. They are just as unreconcilable now
as they were in the beginning; and Conserva-
tion, in spite of his very specific committal
to it, has been set back. Its working force is
disorganized; its enemies are bold; some of its
plans — the Appalachian Park, for example —
have been dropped; and an unhappy Con-
gressional investigation of one of the Cabinet
officers has attracted more attention than
any policy that he wishes to further or than
any measure before Congress. Conciliation
and postponement of a fundamental decision
unhappily did not succeed. And whatever
the Congressional investigation may reveal, or
the report of the Committee show, Conserva-
tion under Mr. Ballinger will continue to have
an apologetic and discouraged attitude, and the
best public opinion of the nation touching this
subject will be grieved and disappointed.
And, as delay of a fundamental decision
between men made a bad matter worse in
dealing with the controversy about Conser-
vation, so delay in. making a fundamental
decision between groups of men may now make
another bad situation worse. The stand-pat
Senators and the Insurgents are irrecon-
cilable. The President has the right and the
privilege and even the duty to use both to
further his policies — if he can. There is
nothing the matter with the plan of conciliation
except that it does not conciliate. There is
nothing the matter with the plan to keep the
party united except that it will not unite.
It is a war of principles. It is not a
mere quarrel of factions. Mr. Aldrich and
Mr. Dolliver are not going to lock arms and
be reconciled, nor Mr. Cannon and Mr.
Norris, however much they may respect and
admire one another personally. For theirs
is not a personal difference. It is the people
against obstructionists. If these Insurgents
were to surrender, others would take their
places, and two would come to every one that
now stands up to be counted. And they will
win or the party will lose power.
The situation is already clear — the people
are on one side, and on the other side are
the obstructionists who yet have the power in
Congress. But this group will not have power
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THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEOPLE
12651
after the people get an opportunity to unseat
them. They were elected last year because
of the force of party organization and because
they swore that they would stand with the
President.
The people cannot reach Mr. Aldrich by
the ballot — he comes from Rhode Island.
The people doubtless will elect Mr. Cannon
again because of his personal popularity among
his neighbors and of his long service; but the
people will not elect a Congress that will again
dare to make him Speaker. The future of the
Republican party belongs to the faction now
called Insurgents because they represent the
convictions and the conscience of the people.
If, therefore, the President decides or comes
by indecision, to stand or fall with "party
regularity," he will fall. For party control
is about to be shifted. And, however blameless
he may be for what Congress fails to do, the
punishment will fall on him. This is one of
the penalties of Presidential eminence.
To lead a party — that was a worthy aim.
But our parties now are more and more
shifting and dissolving groups. And one
party is no longer arrayed against the other —
except in the formal and feigned combat in
Congress. The men who till the soil and
run the machinery and conduct the commerce
of the land — the makers of wealth and the
makers of parties and of Presidents — are
not Republicans or Democrats as they once
were. These old distinctions are dying out.
They are kept alive chiefly by political mana-
gers. These millionB — especially those that
dwell between our two mountain ranges —
are asking one another whether Mr. Taft
will succeed in wresting the Government from
undue control by the beneficiaries of special
privilege. They do not stop to make fine
analyses — to ask whether Congress is to
blame. They will not take the trouble to
inquire how many good measures were pro-
posed. Factions, parties, even Presidents —
all old political names and symbols — have
lost power to allure or to obscure or to frighten.
What the people want is a leader, a leader
without hesitancy. They have but one enemy
in political life; and they are in earnest in their
fight against that. That enemy is the power,
whether Democratic or Republican, that
money yet has to do the public business out
of the people's sight, and by so doing it to
secure immunity and privilege and more
complete control.
Thus it has come about (hat the people
look to the President to lead not his party only,
nor only one section of his party, but to be the
people's leader. Not by trusting to "party
regularity" nor by waiting on discredited
Congressional leaders who have already be-
trayed him, nor by trying to reconcile irrecon-
cilable forces, can he give the right signal to
public opinion.
Presidential leadership consists of two dif-
ferent tasks — the effort to secure legislation
and the guidance of public opinion. Congress
may stand in the way in one of these, but it
cannot stand in the way in the other. And
public opinion does some kinds of tasks that
legislation cannot do.
It is not judicial consideration of the bound-
ary line between the permissible and the
mandatory in vague statutes, it is not the
patience of a judge while the advocates wrangle,
nor the conciliatory benevolence of a colonial
administrator that the people most desire.
These are all good qualities and exercises in
their time and place. But the people now
want a clear and renewed understanding that
the obstructive forces in Congress shall not
count the President among them.
The really important matter is that the
Government shall be rid of those that use its
machinery and its cunningly drawn laws to
further private ends; and such tasks as this
is done far more by public opinion than by
legislation.
By merely reasoning out the situation the
President's position seems invincible. He is
working with his party and its nominal
leaders — working, as all such work is done,
by compromise. If they fail him, it is not
his fault. And the people will surely remem-
ber that he tried to serve them. That seems
sound.
But it may be fallacious under present
conditions — " academic," as we say of plaus-
ible but impractical measures.
It is time for a renewed understanding with
public opinion. The people are saying to
the President: "If you try to be the leader
merely of your party, you will fail. If you
will be the leader of the people, a great triumph
awaits you; and it is a little matter, in these
quickly dissolving scenes, what becomes for
the moment of party power or of Congressional
programmes. While factional wrangles are
going on in Washington, we are thinking of
much larger things."
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WHEN BURGLARY INSURANCE IS GOOD
THE evening paper in a city near New
York " featured* ' a story concerning
the murder of a prominent citizen.
In the middle of the night, he had heard noises
downstairs and had gone down to investigate.
A burglar shot him through the heart.
Julius Osbora, himself a householder, read
the story aloud to his wife after dinner. It
made a deep impression, for both had known
the victim very well, and both gave thought
to his family, left suddenly without its head.
About a month later, in the middle of the night,
his wife awoke Julius Osborn with the time-
worn cry:
''Julius, I know there are burglars in the
house. I heard the loose board in the dining-
room squeaking 1 "
He got up as quietly as he could, stole over
to the door of the room, listened for a minute,
then turned the key and shot the bolt.
"They are there, all rightl" he said. "I'll
try and collect the burglary insurance in the
morning; but we'll let the life insurance stand
for a while yet!"
He went over to the closet, found his heaviest
shoes, put them on, and tramped around for
a little while, making a reasonable noise.
Then he turned out the lights and went back to
bed. There was not much sleep for the rest
of the night; but it was nearly daylight when
he went downstairs.
The place was in confusion. The dining-
room and the library were plundered. All the
flat silver was gone, and even the plated silver
had been broken or plugged. Various articles
of bric-a-brac, more or less valuable, had
disappeared. A picture had been taken from
the wall. Even a small bronze lamp was
missing.
Before an intelligent inventory had been
taken, he telephoned to the police. Then they
went to work to count the cost. They reckoned
the total loss at about $420, mostly in silver-
ware. The picture had cost $50. It was
a present that he had given to his wife, and he
remembered, with satisfaction, that the bill for
it rested in a pigeonhole in his desk in town.
He went to his office, leaving the police
at work. Right away, he telephoned to the
company, told them what had taken place, and
asked that a man be sent to his house. He
added that his wife had a full inventory of the
loss, and that most of the pieces lost could be
verified by bills, or by reference to the stores
from which they came.
When he got home that night, the company
had finished its inspection. His wife told
him that they had chosen to replace the silver-
ware in the same design, and from the same
store from which the old silver had been
bought, and that they would either pay cash
or give him an order on the picture-store for
a similar picture. The bric-a-brac would
be paid for by a check. Three days later,
all this had been done.
Mr. Osborn had been carrying burglary
insurance for $1,000 for more than two years.
He had paid three premiums of $12.50 each.
He sayfc that it is the most comfortable item
in his household equipment.
In this case, everything went just right
There was no reasonable doubt of the burglary.
The facts adduced, the report of the police,
and the character of the man and his family
proved the legitimate loss. Therefore, pay-
ment was prompt and without any trouble.
It is not always so. A neighbor of Julius
Osborn, who took out insurance as soon as
he heard the Osborn story, found out a few
of the facts about such insurance when he
made his first claim. It was in the early
winter, and a flurry of snow led him to ask
for his fur coat. His wife could not find it
He went to town without it, but expected her
to find it during the day. It failed to turn
up. His wife remembered very well hanging
it up in the closet at the close of the previous
winter. They decided that it had been stolen.
A claim on the insurance company found the
gentlemen of that concern mildly incredulous.
They suggested that perhaps he had sent it to
a tailor and forgotten to call for it They
hinted that perhaps he had left it at the house
of a friend. Maybe he had even lent it to
some one, who had forgotten to send it back.
Anyway — and this was final — they referred
him to a clause in his policy which read as
follows:
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"The mere disappearance of an article not
to be deemed sufficient evidence 0} its loss by
burglary, theft, or larceny.97
That man is still carrying his insurance, but
he always waits until the last day before he
pays the premium. He feels aggrieved every
time he tells the story; and it does not seem
to sooth his feelings when some one tells him
that he ought to have read the policy before he
signed it As a matter of fact, this " mysterious
disappearance clause" is a feature of nearly
every house-burglary policy.
There are thousands of claims made every
year on insurance companies for the payment
of just such losses. A lady who had placed
a bag containing jewels in a closet, and gone
out for the day missed it on her return. Her
maid also had been out, but had come back
early in the afternoon. After a week's delay,
she claimed the value of the jewels from the
insurance company. They cited the " myster-
ious disappearance clause." She stood on
her rights. A city court gave her a verdict
for the whole amount. The supreme court
reversed the decision, on the ground that the
disappearance of the bag — no other facts
being adduced — did not prove burglary,
theft, or larceny.
There is a lot of common sense and very
little technical nonsense about the settlement
of these matters. If there is any reasonable
ground for the belief that things are stolen,
and not merely lost, the companies will pay,
more or less promptly. The presence of
workmen in the house, during the time of
the loss is not sure evidence, by any means;
but, providing they are not engaged for more
than three consecutive days, it will often turn
the scale in favor of the insured, particularly
when the character of the claimant is beyond
suspicion.
A woman in Harlem, doing her own house-
work, answered a ring at her doorbell. The
man who came up said that he came from the
landlord, and was going to look over the light-
ing fixtures and the plumbing. She let him
in and went back to the kitchen, leaving him
"fussing" with the radiator in the -front
room. Later she heard him in the bedroom,
but paid no attention to him. After a while,
he came to the kitchen, looked over the plumb-
ing in a cursory way, apologized for his inter-
ruption, and went away.
Later in the day, she discovered that pretty
nearly everything of value that could be put
into a man's pocket or a tool-bag had disap-
peared. Some small gold pins, all the larger
jewelry, and even some small articles of house-
hold silverware had gone with the plausible
stranger.
She notified the police immediately, and
telephoned for an insurance investigator.
The police came and gave her a lot of good
advice about letting strangers into the flat
The insurance man came, and was frankly
doubtful about it. The loss was undoubted;
but he was not sure how the company would
look at it
In a little time, the company made up its
mind. There was no doubt about the loss.
The character of the insurer was also beyond
suspicion. The circumstances made it quite
clear that the loss was by theft A woman's
trustful nature is one of the risks of business.
The company paid $425 cash. There was
no effort at evasion. The woman got her
lesson without having to pay for it
If this woman had delayed a week before
notifying the police and the company, in all
probability there would have been a contest.
The notification clauses in such a policy are
very important. In theory, they give the
company a chance to follow up the burglar
before the trail grows cold; and, in addition
they give a chance for really checking up the
evidence. Even in cases where the loser is
not certain, and wants to wait a week or so in
the hope that things will turn up, the very
waiting shows to the company that the loser
is not certain of his loss. The company
wants to be certain, and the loser's uncertainty
is a strong point against him.
In one of the instances cited in this article
it will be noticed that the company chose to
replace the articles lost This is its right under
the terms of the policy. In the case of jewelry,
silverware, etc., this right is very often exercised.
The larger companies are very big customers
of the jewelry and silverware houses, and they
obtain "inside prices" on the material. Prop-
erty of this sort that is worth $100 to the loser
can be replaced by the company for probably
$75. There is a very substantial saving on
the total face-value of losses of this sort; and
the loser is usually quite willing to have his
property replaced rather than paid for in cash
at retail prices.
There are cases, of course, where the noti-
fication feature of the policy is waived by the
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SIGN-POSTS ON THE ROAD TO RUIN
company. In nearly all the policies issued
by the standard companies, the owner has
the privilege of closing up his house and leav-
ing it standing alone for a period of six months.
If the house is ransacked during the summer
holidays, or during the absence of the owner
for any cause, the notification clauses do not
run against the collection of money for losses.
It is not even required, as in the case of fire
insurance, that the owner give notice to the
company of an intention to be away. He
simply locks up and goes, without fear of
invalidating his policy.
There are, of course, some pitfalls in the
burglary policies; but the main thing to look
out for is the character of the company writing
the insurance. There seems to be no reason-
ably sure way to check up the records of the
companies to find out how many claims they
have contested, and how many they have paid
in any one year. Neither the companies,
the state insurance authorities, nor the courts
supply full enough figures to give this depart-
ment the material for a " white list" or a
"black list," showing what companies pay
most and what companies fight most claims
under burglary policies.
General reputation alone is the guide.
There are many sound companies conducted
on honest business principles. These pay
reasonable losses, often on evidence that is
wholly circumstantial. On the other hand,
there are such companies operating in large
volume, writing thousands of policies every
year, well known to the insurance world as
notorious claim-dodgers. They fight on every
pretext. They twist their "guarding clauses"
into all sorts of pretexts to avoid the payment of
claims that are reasonable. In the courts, their
lawyers resort to all the subterfuges known
to the fraternity — and there are many
subterfuges.
SIGN-POSTS ON THE ROAD TO RUIN
WHY don't you," wrote a recent cor-
respondent, "tell us how to recog-
nize the signs of danger in invest-
ment? There must be certain clear, definite
and unmistakable phenomena in these fraudu-
lent games, and we ought to learn how to
know them when we see them."
It is quite a contract. A big book could be
written on the subject without more than
scratching the surface, and after a man had
read it he might go out and stumble into a
pitfall that the editor had missed.
Yet there are a few glaring sign-posts and
signals along the ways of crooked finance.
Only the worst of them — that is, the most
prevalent — can be touched upon in the
space of this article, but enough can be written
to open a few eyes.
In a current advertisement in a New York
newspaper, the promoters of a new industrial
underlined this sentence:
"On March 1, the price of this stock will
advance to $35 a share. This is positively the
last chance to buy it below that price"
Anyone who is in the least skilled in invest-
ment puts that proposition down immediately
as a thing to be avoided. If a certain clique
of men, unknown to you, working in a little
office somewhere in the financial districts can
arbitrarily make the price of this stock, it
ought to be clear enough to the mind of an
average child that the stock has all the appear-
ance of "loaded dice."
This trick of advancing paper prices at
stated intervals is so old that it ought not to
catch any one. Yet it is of universal practice.
The men that use it are not trying to attract
business funds. They are out after the savings
of the poor, the ignorant, and the avaricious
fool. They get these savings, year by year,
in millions of dollars and they will probably
continue to get them until the end of time.
There used to be a genius downtown in
New York who headed a house that floated
many millions of dollars' worth of mining
stocks, cheap industrials, light-weight industrial
bonds, and other such. At the head of his
house-stationery he carried this legend:
"No investor in the securities issued by this
house has ever lost a dollar through his invest-
ment"
As a reporter, I interviewed this gentleman
in connection with a suit brought against him
to recover money lost in mining stock.
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"It looks to me as though you ought to
revise that stationery of yours," I said.
He laughed.
"No — not until he proves that he has lost
the dollar. You see, he hasn't sold his stock
yet He can't lose any money until he sells
the stock. We don't pretend to make any
market for our stocks, and if they hang on
they can't lose. See?"
I saw. The gentleman merely meant that
if you bought his stocks nobody would ever
try to steal them from you.
That slogan, with many variations, has
crept up out of the slime of the gutter to take
its place in the "conservative" banking
literature of the day. Whenever you see it,
ask the banker what it means. In many cases,
the users of it do not intend to mislead you.
They are simply themselves misled by a
specious phrase. If they are dishonest, they
will side-step the question. If honest, they
will tell you that it merely means that none of
the companies they have financed has ever
defaulted, gone into bankruptcy, or skipped
out of the country. You can put it down as
almost axiomatic that it does not mean that you
can get your money back whenever you like.
A firm that sells mortgages, serials, small
investment stocks, or other securities that are
sold on the distinct understanding that they
will be held to maturity may be entitled to
say " there never has been a dollar of loss in
any of our securities." Even here, real candor
would write it: " there never has been a default
on any of our securities."
On seven consecutive Sundays, the pro-
moters of a mining company with $50,000
worth of stock to sell spent, in all, $18,000 for
advertising in two New York newspapers.
This fact was imparted to me by one of the
alleged "bankers," crossing on a ferryboat to
Jersey.
"How do you make it pay?" I asked.
"Oh, we sold the whole block of stock, all
right," he said, "and took in $50,000. The
cost was about $20,000 altogether, and we made
$12,000 out of it."
In other words, out of the $50,000 which
fond investors put into that stock, the news-
papers got $18,000, others got $2,000, and the
promoters got $12,000. That left $18,000 to
help open the mine — perhaps.
The proportion is a little higher than usual.
I think that in most of the advertising of this
sort the company is apt to get nearly half of
the total amount of the money that is taken in.
In other words, if the advertising brings in
$100,000 the company ought to get nearly
$50,000.
The other half can be spent for advertising,
commissions, bonuses, bribes, stationery, etc.
The " etc. " is quite important. I know of one
case in which it included a trip to Europe for
the promoter and his whole family. The trip
was nominally in an effort to interest Dutch
bankers in the company. It lasted three
months, and included London, Paris, the Alps,
and southern France, with the rent of an
automobile..
I think it is safe to say that the most glaring
sign-post on the road to investment ruin is
the flamboyant "spread" advertisement.
It is perfectly obvious that the lower down
one goes in the class of investments, the larger
is the margin for expense in selling. A banker
who underwrites, say, $1,000,000 of the under-
lying bonds of the Burlington Railroad in
normal times has to pay the company very
nearly the market value. His total commission
is not likely to exceed $20,000, and if he bought
in the market his total margin of profit is not
likely to be over $10,000.
He cannot afford, on that, to buy whole
pages of newspapers, and spend money on all
sorts of advertising schemes.
A little lower down the list, he can get a
commission of perhaps $50,000. On that he
can push his bonds quietly, advertise conserva-
tively, put a few salesmen on the road.
When it comes down as far as the industrial
stock or construction bond, the profit is big
enough to permit a lot of literature, an army
of salesmen, and much printer's ink.
When it comes to the bottom of the list, a
promoter who undertakes to raise $500,000 for
the development of a doubtful mining prospect
or industrial will demand, and receive, pretty
close to $500,000 as his margin to work on.
He can go as far as he likes. He is the gentle-
man that buys the pages of the biggest dailies
in the country, and floods the land with pros-
pectuses, photographs, books, and* "samples."
There are so many glaring examples of this
flamboyant advertising in the records of the
past few years that it is, perhaps, invidious to
name names. The type, however, is well
represented by the record of the United
Wireless Telegraph Company.
When you pick up the prospectus of somt
new company, pushing a new invention, or a
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RAISING MONEY IN THE HOME TOWN
new magazine, or a new household necessity ,•
and find some extravagant comparison between
the new one and some old one that made a
world-record — look out! Here are a few that
have been lavishly used in the past two or
three years:
To compare some new transmitter of sound
with the old Bell Telephone.
To compare a new magazine with Munsey's,
the Ladies9 Home Journal, or the Saturday
Evening Post.
To compare a new printing machine with
the Merganthaler Linotype.
And once, not so very long ago, a banking
house sold a great many bonds on a trolley
line that was to be part of a projected New
York-Philadelphia line, using in the advertising
a comparison between the position of the new
line and that of the old Delaware & Bound-
brook, now part of the main line of the Reading
between these cities! Imagination could go no
further, and the house and its dreams blew up.
Most men who read these days are getting
pretty well accustomed to what is called "hot
air. " It is not very hard to detect it in invest-
ment literature. When you do find traces
of it, throw the literature away. The only
thing that is any good to you in buying invest-
ments is fact, and promoters do not draw
on the "hot-air" reservoir until the reservoir
of fact is empty.
Turning away from the field of low-class
investment, the most frequent and the most
subtle of the pitfalls of better investment is the
offering of construction propositions in a way
that seems to make them out as finished pro-
jects. This was the rock upon which the
firms of A. N. Chandler and E. D. Shepard
came to grief. There are other firms that do
it, consciously or unconsciously.
A new railroad, gas plant, electric plant,
irrigation proposition, or industrial may be
offered to the public with perfect propriety.
This magazine will take such advertising with-
out hesitation — provided that it is made
perfectly clear in the advertising and in the
literature that it is a construction proposition
and not a finished project. C. M. K.
RAISING MONEY IN THE HOME TOWN
NINE men out of ten who try to start a
new industry, or build a new electric
railway, or install a new electric-light
system in the town begin with the idea that
the money must be raised outside. They figure
on paying as high as 10 per cent for the cash,
but they care little about that.
On the other hand, nine out of ten successful
enterprises, either manufacturing, commercial,
or public utility, are started with home money.
The man who undertakes to begin a new enter-
prise should be a man who can command or
borrow or beg from his own friends and
acquaintances enough money to lay a solid
foundation under the new venture.
The tin-plate industry in this country began
with a little group of friends around Richmond,
Indiana; the first venture was a failure but it
did not disrupt the. group. Mr. D. G. Reid
was the centre of it. The Great Northern
Railway was founded on money put in by half
a dozen friends, and not on money borrowed
from strangers on securities. The biscuit
industry of this country began in the same way.
An analysis of nine out of ten of the industries
of the country would reveal that the starting-
point was personal association.
A local trolley system may be taken as a
subject for the raising of money. A man
living in a town of six thousand people gets
it into his head that the town needs a trans-
portation system. He figures out, roughly,
how much rail would have to be laid as a
starter. He gets a few ideas as to the cost of
power, the traffic that would be available at
the start, and a few other main factors.
Then arises the question of money. If he
be a man of ample means, it may be that he
can put up enough cash himself to build the
initial line. Then the main problem is solved.
But very few men can go about the enterprise
in this way. Most of them turn elsewhere for
capital.
The simplicity of the affair depends on the
man from this point onward. If he knows
quite well all the leading citizens, he can go to
them off-hand and put the proposition before
them. Naturally, he will start with the leading
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capitalists of the town. The bank presidents
will come next
It is in the handling of these men, the wealthy
of the community, that success or failure
begins. Usually, in every city, there are two
or three men of capital who lead all enterprise.
If one of them can be enlisted in the under-
taking, the rest of the town, speaking generally,
will follow. These local magnates are exceed-
ingly difficult to handle. Unless the promoter
knows them personally and they know and
admire his ability, the quest is practically sure
to be a failure.
Yet it is possible to get over even this obsta-
cle. A young man in the Middle West, who
had lived only a year in the little town where he
practised law, met another young man on the
street with whom he had been in college.
Over a lunch, his reason for being there
came to light.
"I am representing the B Furniture
Company, of which the old man is presi-
dent," he said, "and, in confidence, I am
looking around for a good place to locate a
new factory. We have to get into this section
of the country, for our raw material is coming
more from the South every year. I've been
in all the towns within a hundred miles to the
west and south of here — just prospecting."
"What do you think of this town as a site?"
asked the other.
"There's a place down the river about a
mile and a half," said the visitor, "that would
suit us exactly. I would report for it except
for one thing — that there is no way to get
there. I can drive; but we would have to
employ half a thousand men, and they must
be able to live in the town. We would not
start with that many; but we count on making
this new plant, wherever we locate it, the big
plant of the company. You can't put a plant
like that out in the country, you know; for
you won't get your labor if you do."
The home man thought rapidly. For six
months, he had been wishing for a chance to
start a trolley road, but had had no vantage
point from which to work.
"Suppose," said he, "there were a trolley-
line running down there — would you take the
place? I am only asking because I've been
trying to figure out some way to get one
started."
"If we could pick up that site before the
rumors get going, so that we would get it cheap,
I would report in favor of it."
They adjourned to the home man's office.
That night, the furniture man went East with
an option in his pocket covering the land that
he needed at a price that he thought fair. The
option was for six months.
Then the campaign began. The news-
papers printed a little item about the possible
coming of the furniture company — if con-
ditions were right. A couple of days later,
the young man called on the president of one
of the banks, and put the situation clearly
before him. He was perfectly frank. He
told of the accidental meeting, of his college
friend's scouting over the territory, of half a
dozen other possible locations — and of the
direct need of a trolley road to run out to the
river. He even told of the option.
"I can put no money in myself," he added,
"but if the project should take life I think I
can get some friends of mine out of town to
come in. In fact, the furniture people them-
selves will probably be willing to help."
His frankness won. The bank president
took hold. As a citizen of the town, a factory
of that sort had a direct appeal to him. As a
bank president, the handling of the business
of such a project was a bait that he could
hardly be expected to ignore.
"Pll see what I can do," he said. "Let
me handle it for a day or so. Come and see me
on Friday."
On the Friday, the young man found the
banker primed with a lot of personal questions.
He wanted to know what the young man
expected to get out of it; what his friend wanted
out of it; who would look after the organiza-
tion, etc. He was frankly suspicious, yet
frankly willing to be convinced.
All these questions were answered. The
next week half a dozen men met at the banker's
house. They were the leading men of capital
in the town — and the young man. The ice
was broken.
This was seven years ago. The line was
built within twelve months, the furniture
factory was established, and to-day there are
three other factories located at the western end
of the line. It was built without borrowing a
cent from anyone outside the group of people
who pushed it through in the first place. Some
later extensions have been financed in the
East, and it has a general mortgage bond issue
to-day that will look after its future. The
young man who started it has not gained
wealth from it, but he has gained a leading
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HAPPY HUMANITY
position in his own profession in town and is the
counsel for the road itself.
Here, an accident entered into the matter to
a marked extent. The true promoting genius
can control such accidents. In other words,
if a man has a project of this sort to float, he
must create some new advantages for the
community and for the project itself, in order
to get it a good hearing and start it with real
enthusiasm. Moreover, there must be a lot
of sound common sense at the bottom of a
project of this sort — which must appeal to a
wider public than a local industrial, for instance
— and the need for it must be apparent on the
surface.
Any public man in a town who starts such
a project should be fortified, before he starts,
with all the cardinal facts. It is not necessary,
of course, to get a survey and specifications
and all the other expensive paraphernalia of
incorporation and operation. A good opinion
from an engineer — a local engineer of good
standing is as good as the best in the country —
as to general features and costs is a useful
weapon. A careful estimate of traffic is
essential. Conservative judgment as to how
much or how little line will do to start with is
also essential.
And a man must have real honest enthusiasm
if he is going to raise money at home. It is
all right to go to the Eastern bankers in a
cold-blooded, business-like, hard-headed atti-
tude. But in home circles, honest "boost"
is worth much.
There are, however, far too many enter-
prises in this country that are based on enthu-
siasm and nothing else. Some of them repre-
sent the magnetism of a single man, such a
man as his fellows will follow no matter where
he leads. Such a proposition is dangerous
both to promoter and to the public. Common
sense and business judgment must form the
basis of the prospectus upon which the money
of your friends is drawn into business enterprise.
HAPPY HUMANITY
11
ITS PROMISING PLAN IN THE NEW WORLD
BY
FREDERIK VAN EEDEN
IN giving the details of my new plan for
realizing Happy Humanity, after the
failure made in Holland, as explained
in the article of last month, I hope the reader
will allow me to point out its significance.
The new organization will be called The
CoSperative Company of America, or some
such name. The title indicates that it is a
business concern. No creed or political doc-
trine will be associated with it, except the creed
that every normal human being holds — that
of honesty and fairness.
We will start with a group of market-gar-
deners, and the land selected for that purpose
lies in North Carolina, near the city of Wilming-
ton. The opportunity there is exceptionally
favorable. Colonization has been tried there,
for several years, with much success. Italian,
Dutch, and German setders have there attained
prosperity by truck-gardening. It is a great
strawberry-raising country, and the soil is fit
for the culture of the most varied plants and
vegetables. The climate is like that of Italy,
and the rainfall abundant. Excellent fast
trains, with refrigerator-cars, place the country
within easy reach of the greatest markets of
the whole continent.
The preliminary work for colonization,
which would have given us great expense, is
already done, and we can take advantage of the
experience of others.
Here, if anywhere, are lines of least resistance
and we have secured an option on about 20,000
acres of land at a price of from $15 to $20 an
acre. After a few years of cultivation the
value should increase to $200 or $300 an acre,
and more.
Our intention is to select a group of high-
class gardeners, experts in intensive farming,
and let them have this land as tenants. We
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HAPPY HUMANITY
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shall be able to select twenty-five families,
of the very best, and locate them next to one
another on plots of about ten acres each.
These people should be immigrants, as yet
unspoiled by contact with city life. Since
Hollanders have a high reputation as inten-
sive gardeners and generally excellent qualities
for settlers, it was considered best to select this
advance guard from my own country. And
I know now, after some months of investiga-
tion in Holland, that I can get hundreds of
families, willing and eager to come. In fact,
a little group of half a dozen first-rate men
have already answered my call and have
settled there at their own expense. They
will do excellent work as prospectors and
advisors.
They will pay no more than a fixed rent,
which will never be increased to them. The
settler will have the full reward of his efforts.
When, after one or two years, he proves to be
a desirable member of the new organization,
he will become a conditional owner and stock-
holder of the Company.
Therein lies the essential and vital point
of the whole experiment. This is the one
feature which distinguishes it from all similar
enterprises and its effect has to be tried.
The usual form of colonization is simply to
sell the land to the settlers, the price to be paid
from his earnings in a certain number of years.
Then the man becomes a landlord, and is left
entirely to his own devices, his own sense of
justice and responsibility. What this means,
with the raw material of immigrants annually
let loose on American soil, is shown clearly
and sadly enough by the immense waste and
reckless spoliation of the vast resources of this
rich country.
So what we are going to try now is condi-
tional ownership, under control of a cooper-
atively organized company, in the following
way:
The tenant will have full freedom in the
cultivation of his farm. He may have all the
rights of practical ownership, with the excep-
tion of selling, renting, and neglecting the
property. He will be able to leave the prop-
erty to his heirs, if these accept the same con-
ditions. If he wants to leave, the Company
will pay for his improvements. He need never
pay more rent than a small sum, amounting
to a percentage of the original amount paid
by the Company. This might be considered
as a tax — a truly just and fair single tax,
levied by the Company for the benefit of the
whole organization.
We believe that the compensation we can
give for the want of the full tide will prove
to be more attractive to the intelligent farmer
than uncontrolled rights of possession. This
compensation will consist in the right to hold
the dividend-paying stock. The tenant who
may become a stockholder will then not be an
owner of the land; but in common with the
other members he will own the stock repre-
senting it And he will profit by all the activi-
ties of the whole Company, whether agricul-
tural, industrial, or commercial. The Com-
pany will, moreover, act as a disinterested
agent and market his products for him, so that
be may give all of his attention to his farm.
The Company will also buy for him at whole-
sale his supplies, seeds, fertilizer, implements,
household goods, etc., and share with him the
benefits of this community of interests. All
these advantages are given in compensation
for a limitation of his ownership, which is, in
fact, nothing but a control.
It is worth trying, and more so than any
social improvement I know of. If, well con-
ducted, it should fail, then we have a reason
for giving up our belief in democracy.
This sort of cooperation has been tried in
Europe and America, and generally very suc-
cessfully. It is often said that cooperation
abolishes the middleman. But this is untrue.
It simply gives the middleman his fair due,
and no more. When, as in France, shirts
are made at a cost of twenty-five cents for mate-
rial and labor, and sold wholesale for fifty-five
cents, giving the laborer seven cents wage for two
hours' work and the merchant twenty cents net
profit — nobody can call this [air. It would be
impossible to get such profits if all people con-
cerned, producers and consumers alike, were
consulted in the matter. In order to make such
profits, the merchant has tocheat his laborersand
his clients. This is what cooperation corrects.
The Company will employ middlemen, of
course, and pay them a fair remuneration,
but it will tell both producer and consumer
what its prices are — cost price, wholesale and
retail price — and how much percentage it has
to take as commission for its service.
By this commission, the Company will
make its profits, besides the single tax on the
tenants before mentioned. This implies that
increasing production, and also increased
prosperity with increasing requirements of
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HAPPY HUMANITY
its members, will increase its budget and its
profits. The more goods it sells, either to out-
siders or to members, the wealthier it will
become. And from these profits, which would
be regulated within the margin of the outside
market, will be formed, in the first place, a
sinking fund for the amortization of the orig-
inal debt; then one part as a dividend for pre-
ferred stock, another for dividends to com-
mon-stock holders, a third part for invalid and
old-age pensions and insurance, and a part
for the extension of the business. A banking
department will be established as soon as
possible.
The Company will be constituted of two
sorts of members — tenants who work en-
tirely independently, and the employees who
receive regular wages, according to the labor-
market. My experiments have plainly shown
that it is entirely impractical and ruinous to
bring an entire change into the ordinary remu-
neration of wage-earning employees. We shall
have to follow the outside labor-market —
however unfair that may be — for the present,
because we cannot otherwise attract men of
ability to our enterprise.
On the other hand, it will never do to pay a
farmer a fixed wage for his labor. It invari-
ably lessens his efficiency. He must be depen-
dent on his production and even liable to evic-
tion if he is not able to make his farm pay.
This, also, was the positive outcome of my own
experiment.
Only the distinction of tenant members and
industrial and administrative employees, as
proposed, will meet all the difficulties.
The immense concerns of distributive coSper-
ation in England and Belgium show what can
be done even with average management. The
annual net profits of the Cooperative Wholesale
Societies in the United Kingdom amount to
twenty million dollars. These societies, how-
ever, do not undertake agriculture and real-
estate ownership, as we propose. They divide
their profits among the members, making it a
profit-business without wider scope. Their
trouble is that they do not know how to invest,
which sounds rather paradoxical. Their profits
bother them, because their organization is
incomplete.
Distributive wholesale cooperation is com-
paratively easy for ordinary business man-
agement. These huge wholesale societies are
made up of ordinary laborers or middle-class
people, and their managers are selected from
among themselves, doing wonderfully well in
their position, but not being organizers of great
ability.
It is exactly this feature in which our plan
will surpass them. It will be a complete
cooperation, including the production of the
goods wanted by its members on the soil and in
the factories owned by the Company itself.
This greater conception can be executed
only by organizers and leaders of great ability.
I do not see that there can be imagined a task
more worthy of a great genius, a "captain of
industry."
But the rare discernment needed to dis-
cover business abilities is certainly lacking in
the multitude, and business organization by
democratic method is at the present time
utterly impossible. I have myself suffered
from its pernicious effect
For this reason it will be necessary to leave
the authority in our Company in the begin-
ning entirely in the hands of those who initiated
it. The board of trustees will appoint the
manager, who is responsible only to them.
The stock-holding members will be chosen on
recommendations of the manager, by the same
board.
Gradually, however, education in democracy
will begin. The settlers, who will have no
part in the management in the beginning,
will later acquire the right to vote and choose
new members of the board of trustees, to whom
they will always have access.
The safeguard for fair treatment and good
management must be found in confidence in the
initiators of the plan and the open discussion
of its scope and aims.
Moreover, there is a safeguard in the public
opinion and the public attention. Enter-
prises like this, with a motive of general inter-
est, are always supported by public opinion.
It was public opinion which caused the all-
too-rapid boom of my cooperative enterprise
in Amsterdam, but it was public faith in my
disinterestedness that made the final blow less
hard than it would otherwise have been.
Since our board of trustees will be con-
stituted by men of high standing and reputa-
tion, the public will back the company when-
ever possible — by buying its products or pro-
tecting it by legislation. If, however, the
original aim is disregarded, the support of the
public will surely be withdrawn.
I dare maintain that the chances for survival
in the struggle for existence will always be
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HAPPY HUMANITY
i*66l
greater in the organization proposed by me,
than in any other. Given the same outward
circumstances and the same good management,
this form of organization will always win,
simply because it is more complete and more
fair. For one thing, it keeps all the profits
within the business, as soon as the debt to the
investors is paid off. There are no leaks.
Nothing is wasted to land-owners, to uncon-
trolled and irresponsible middlemen, nor to
inactive outsiders. The stockholders who get
the dividends will themselves work to increase
them, and they will spend their dividends in
buying goods from the Company and so
increase its prosperity.
The incentive for work will be greater than
in any other concern, because the Company
will give not only the usual rewards, like any
other business, but every member is sure that
his production will not be wasted by outsiders,
and all his efforts will strike home in the full
sense.
The larger the concern grows, the less will
be the waste in competition and advertising.
An organization of producers and consumers
need not advertise; its members can look,
themselves, after the methods of production
and the quality of articles produced.
The prosperity of the members will increase
the prosperity of the Company, because they
will want more and buy more, and vice versa;
because higher dividends will mean wealthier
members. There will be no vicious circle,
like in the present defective organization,
where waste is engendering idleness and idle-
ness waste; but a beneficial circle which will
increase wealth and efficiency in a measure
unknown thus far. It will grow — after the
first difficult years have passed — like a rolling
snowball. Its accumulation will accelerate at
a rate that has never been seen before, and
can never be seen elsewhere — simply because
its organization is more perfect
That all this is true theoretically, no one
can deny. The objection will be that it has
not yet been shown in practice, and that the
plan in working will reveal unforeseen
difficulties.
The only thing wanted is experiment,
repeated tenaciously and methodically.
And I cannot conceive an object for experi-
ment more important, more eagerly wanted
by struggling humanity, than a better form of
organized production and distribution.
It will not only correct idleness and waste;
it will have immense moral and educational
value. It will enable us to stop making paupers,
criminals, and spendthrifts. It will enable
us to prevent unemployment, for unemploy-
ment is the result of production at random,
without thorough control and knowledge of the
market. A well-organized company will take
care to regulate production for its own market,
so that no unemployment can set in, and it
will shift its unskilled and half-skilled workers
from one department to another, according
to season or circumstance. Overproduction
will not create enforced idleness and starva-
tion, but increased leisure and prosperity to all
To be strongly and effectively organized
must be and remain its first concern. All
philanthropic or sentimental considerations
are to come after that The best philanthropy
is that which shows men how to help them-
selves. So the Company will not start with
inefficient workers, and will not extend more
rapidly than proper organization allows. It
will take care of its own invalids, who become
so in working for the Company, but it will not
begin to take care of the victims of present
social disorder, for those invalids are made
so by the existing system. It will never stop
growing so long as it may expand safely, nor
consider its final perfection reached so long as
there is one necessary article of life not pro-
duced by its own members, or one poor worker
eager to join. This means, of course, that
final perfection will be practically unattainable,
and would signify nothing less than a state
within a state. But there lies no serious objec-
tion in this. States within states we see every-
where; and provided they keep on good terms
with each other and strive for the good, they
cannot be considered dangerous or undesirable.
The comprehensiveness of the plan need
scare nobody, surely not an American. Even
if the goal were approached half-way, the
benefit to mankind would be enormous; and
no doubt a very useful emulation would ensue,
giving rise to similar organizations of different
degrees of perfection.
All this is theoretically possible, and what-
ever may be the difficulties to overcome or the
failures we may have to "make good," no
effort and no amount of money can be con-
sidered wasted, given to a project so high and
beneficial
I, for one, would not deem my life ill-spent
if I could contribute only a small share to the
attainment of such a great aim. •
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GIFFORD PINCHOT, THE
AWAKENER OF THE NATION
BY
WALTER H. PAGE
ONE day a young fellow named Olmsted,
who was a surveyor at Biltmore,
N. C, was going through the woods,
and he saw a man in a torn flannel shirt
squatting over a fire, cooking bacon for his
luncheon. They fell to talking about the
forest, and Olmsted found his chance acquain-
tance very interesting.
"And what do you mean by forestry, any-
how ?" he asked. And Gifford Pinchot told
him.
"He hypnotized me," said Olmsted after-
ward in telling of this first meeting, "and
made forestry seem the only profession worth
a man's while."
The young surveyor gave up surveying,
took to serious study of forestry, went to Ger-
many and India, and studied under the late
Sir Dietrich Brandis. He is now the district
forester at San Francisco.
Pinchot's idea of what a forester's day's
work ought to be may have come to him
when he studied under Sir Dietrich in Ger-
many. He joined the old German one evening
with a group of young English forestry stu-
dents. "The next morning," he said, "we
started out, after an early breakfast, and Sir
Dietrich took us on a steady, hard walk, with-
out rest or food, for eight hours through the
forest, himself intensely interested from the
beginning to the end, but leading a body of
young men by no means so intensely interested.
His spirit of devotion to the work he had not
yet had time to impart to the students, and I
think I have seldom seen an angrier group
than those young Englishmen. My impres-
sion was that if Sir Dietrich, a man of sixty-
five, could stand it, a man of twenty-five
ought to be able to."
The truth is that he had not got tired
because he, too, like the venerable forester,
was consumed with enthusiasm for the work.
But, aside from his enthusiasm, he is physically
fit, and a good woodsman. As a lumberman
who has often been out with him said:
"If anybody thinks that Pinchot can't
walk or ride or shoot, follow him a while. I've
seen him hit a woodchuck in the head at a
hundred yards with a revolver. He has
endurance, too. I judge men as I judge horses.
For endurance you want a Morgan horse
without too much daylight under him. Pin-
chot's got a good amount of daylight — long
legs — but he's got endurance too."
At an Irrigation Congress at Bois£, in 1906,
Senator Heyburn, before an audience made
up mainly of his own constituents, attacked
Pinchot and all that he stood for. He made
a violent speech against the restrictions of the
Government, against bureaucratic rule, against
the theories of those Easterners who talked of
"forest covering" and such things.
When Pinchot got up to reply he removed
the cloth from the table on the platform,
tilted the table forward and poured half a
glass of water upon it. The water of course
ran off on the floor.
"Such," said he, "is the action of the rain
on an uncovered hillside."
He then laid a blotter on the table and poured
the rest of the water on it. The blotter
absorbed it, but in a few minutes it began to
seep through the lower end.
"That is what a forest-covering does for a
hill," he said. By the time he had done
speaking in this plain, practical way, he had
won the audience.
But Senator Heyburn returned to the attack,
and he cited specific cases of hardship that
honest settlers had suffered by the Govern-
ment's restrictions. He told of a poor farmer
who had been refused a patent to a homestead.
He told of a town that had been included and
swallowed up in a forest reserve.
Pinchot also returned to the attack. He
had the facts, as he has a habit of having.
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GIFFORD PINCHOT, THE AWAKENER OF THE NATION 12663
The "poor farmer" was a timber man, and he
had had no idea of becoming a real settler.
The "homestead" which he had not been
allowed to patent was a forest so dense that
it would cost more to clear it than it was worth
as farm land. The town which had been
swallowed up had once been a mining town
but had been abandoned. Nobody lived there.
Two men fell to talking on a train a few years
ago about business methods. One remarked
that the typewriter had made business corre-
spondence prolix. "Everybody now dictates
letters and in dictation everybody repeats.
The compact, brief letter is almost obsolete."
" In the office where I work," said the other,
"the chief one day examined a lot of letters
that various men had written. A number
of them ran over on the second page. He
showed how they could be shortened so as
to fill only one page or a part of a page, and
were better for their brevity. 'Don't let
your letters run over a page/ he said —
'except when absolutely necessary.' An incal-
culable saving has been made in time and
in stationery."
The talk went on about other office methods.
"Nor," said the same speaker, "do we have
roll-top desks. They tempt men to pigeon-
hole things. There are no pigeon-holes on
a fiat table and fiat desks are much more
likely to be cleaned up every day."
"In what business do you work?"
"In the Forest Service at Washington."
"Are you an office-man or a field-man?"
"Both. Every man in the office who has
any really administrative ability is required
to go into the field at times. You know that
if a man sits in an office all the time and makes
decisions and writes letters about things done
in the field, he is likely to get more or less
away from the subject and thus to miss the
point. This is the way in which objectionable
and sometimes stupid 'bureau' methods grow
up. To prevent this our important office-
men all go out at intervals and see the work
from the other end."
" Who runs that office ?"
"Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester."
These typical stories and incidents (and
a thousand more like them and better could
be told) show the qualities of the man; and
it is an unusual combination of qualities.
He is a man of scientific training. He is an
authority on his subject, not in a narrow
sense but in a broad, sound way.
It is man that he is primarily interested in;
and if he were to amuse himself by trying to
formulate the one great principle that guides
him — that grows out of his temperament
and character and that he regards as so funda-
mental as to make everything else subordinate
— I dare say he would discover that it is the
right use of the earth for the perpetual enjoy-
ment of men in a fair-dealing democracy.
But he has no need for creeds; and he doesn't
carry about with him sets of rules or bits of
philosophy for his guidance. He is no more
of a pedant than he is a dreamer. He is a
practical, every-day worker, with an axe in
his hand, or with a large office-staff under him,
or in consultation with the makers of laws.
In many, conversations with him about
many subjects, I have never heard him even
mention his work as the directing head of a
great organization. There were under him
1,000 persons in the Forest Service at Wash-
ington and 2,000 persons in the field. The
work of every one was systematically laid out.
I have never seen quite so good a practical
guide to every-day work as "The Use Book"
of the Forest Service. You may go into the
office of the Forest Service at Washington and
find out in two minutes how many sheep are
grazing on a particular tract of public land
in Wyoming; and in the map-room there's a
map on which every fact that you can possibly
wish to know is made plain — hundreds of
maps for hundreds of groups of facts.
A report made by a Commission appointed
by President Roosevelt declared that this office
was the best conducted of all the public
offices at Washington.
Yet Mr. Pinchot does not regard this as an
achievement in itself worth particular men-
tion. It is a necessary tool to do his job with.
And he would say that any good workman
must keep his tools in order.
When Mr. Roosevelt received the news
of President McKinley's death, he was on
Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks. There he
had seen at one view the results of fire in
the forest, and the results of decay where
the forests were not used; and he could see the
forests which protected the headwaters of the
Hudson. On the first Sunday that he spent
in Washington as Mr. McKinley's successor,
he sent for Mr. Pinchot and Mr. Newell, now
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12664 GIFFORD PINCHOT, THE AWAKENER OF THE NATION
the Chief of the Reclamation Service; and
on that day — his first Sunday in Washington
as President — he made out with them the
outlines of the Conservation policy that
became the greatest achievement of his
Administration.
It was then that Pinchot found another
imagination worthy of the subject — with
the additional help, that now he was dealing
with a President of the United States. And
they were discussing not forestry only but the
whole sweep of constructive work that the
right study of our continent had unfolded.
The right men had met in this Sunday con-
ference— Pinchot and Newell with the
knowledge and with the constructive imagina-
tion, and Roosevelt with the imagination and
the power to begin work which should change
our whole relation to the land we live on.
After six years of such work, during which
a mere beginning had been made, but a
revolutionary beginning, the President called
that historic meeting of Governors with their
scientific advisers at the White House. It
was the most notable gathering of men in a
half-century of our history, and Conservation
was the subject that had brought them together.
In the address with which President Roose-
velt began the series of meetings, he said:
"Especial credit is due to the initiative, the
energy, the devotion to duty, and the farsighted-
ness of Gifford Pinchot, to whom we owe so much
of the progress we have already made in handling
this matter of the coordination and conservation
of natural resources. If it had not been for him,
this convention neither would nor could have
been called."
Mr. Pinchot was standing far back in the
room when this was said, and at the applause
he blushed as a woman might and said to
those near him — "No, no, no — that's too
generous."
On that evening, or the next, when he gave
a reception at his home in Washington to
the visiting Governors and scientific men
— and there was as notable a gathering as has
been seen under any private roof in our genera-
tion— he was embarrassed by every allusion
to the President's compliment. He was a
shy gentleman receiving his friends who —
he seemed to wish — would cease embarrass-
ing him with congratulations and enjoy
themselves.
When he was graduated from Yale College,
forestry in the United States was a thing in
books and nowhere else. But he became
interested in it, and to study it he was obliged
to go abroad. He went to England and there
by chance met Sir Dietrich Brandis, one of the
greatest figures in practical forestry in the
world. In telling of it lately Mr. Pinchot said:
"A good many years ago I found myself in
London with an extra day on my hands. I was
just setting out to study forestry, and so I thought
I would go to the Indian Office and get what
information I could about forestry in India. Most
fortunately, for I was entirely without introduction
of any kind, I found there a gentleman who was
kind enough to procure for me a letter to Sir
Dietrich, of whom I then heard for the first time.
I went at once to Bonn, found Sir Dietrich one
afternoon, told him I wanted to study forestry,
and asked for his advice.
"Instantly he adopted me, so to speak, accepted
the care of directing my work, and immediately
began to tell me how to set about it. I remember
his deciding that I should go to the Nancy Forest
School, which was my plan already, and when I
said to him that I was ready to go, he immediately
began to look up trains.
"I saw that one started at six o'clock the next
morning, and as I wanted to make a good impres-
sion, I said I did not mind getting up early, so
as to catch it.
"He replied: 'Of course you will take the
first train.'
" I hav,e never forgotten the impression he gave
me then of his absolute willingness to do whatever
was required for his work, and his expectation of
finding the same willingness in other men."
In 1892 Pinchot undertook the first practical
task in forestry on any considerable scale in
the United States, at Biltmore, N. C, and he
prepared the forestry exhibits from that
state for the World's Fair at Chicago. Later
he opened an office in New York as a "con-
sulting forester" — a profession that had
practically no clients.
Here was the interesting spectacle of a well-
trained young fellow of exemplary, even frugal
habits, of great industry, with influential
friends, with a competence that he had
inherited, the world open to him by a hundred
roads. Yet he was bent on a study that most
Americans then regarded as a method of
amusing one's self or of wasting time. But
he had none of the qualities of an idler nor of
a man who wished merely to amuse himself.
He worked with as much enthusiasm as if he
were achieving great visible results eveiy
day, and with the keenest enjoyment
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GIFFORD PINCHOT, THE AWAKENER OF THE NATION 12005
It is a long way from "consulting forester"
to leadership of a nation's thought about the
right relation of man to the earth, and con-
sequently the right relation of men to one
another in a democracy. But Gifford Pin-
chot has come this whole distance these
eighteen years since he had an office for the
private practice of a profession that was not
yet born. And, if there were not always
objection to using unqualified phrases and
danger of enthusiasm seeming to outrun sound
judgment — even when it doesn't outrun it —
I should say that he and his work have had a
more profound and wholesome influence on
the public thought of this generation than the
work of any other living man — helped and
developed by President Roosevelt as he could
not have possibly been helped and developed
in any other way or by any other man.
On July 1, 1898 he became chief of the
Division of Forestry, in the Department of
Agriculture. The Division of Forestry at
that time consisted of eleven people, only two
of whom — Mr. Pinchot and his successor,
Mr. Henry S. Graves — were professional
foresters. Its work was entirely scientific,
though it had no laboratory, and was advisory
to private owners who did not wish advice.
The Forest Reserves which had been created
in President Cleveland's Administration, chiefly
upon the advice of a commission of which Mr.
Pinchot was secretary, were still under the
control of the Interior Department. The
word "reserves" describes them. They were
tracts of forest land which the Government
withheld from all use or development and
which at the same time it failed to protect
from fire. There were no trained men in the
ranger force and the whole field service was
hardly more than a farce. The Forest
Reserves at that time bore the same relation
to a properly cared-for forest that an untilled
field watched over by a scarecrow bears to a
properly cultivated farm. Secretary Wilson
said of this time:
"There were in the whole United States less
than ten professional foresters. Neither a science
nor a literature of American forestry was in
existence, nor could an education in the subject
be obtained in this country."
Beginning in 1898 the Division of Forestry
transferred its chief interest to the field, though
it yet had no authority over any National
Forest Reserves. It began two definite tasks:
to get the data necessary to found a science
of American forestry, and to educate the public
to its necessity.
By 1901, the work had so increased that the
Division was enlarged to a Bureau. It still,
however, had no forests under its charge. Its
first administrative work began two years
later, when the sale of the timber on the
Chippewa Indian lands in Minnesota was put
under its charge.
Still, while the Forestry Bureau was build-
ing up a trained force, creating the science of
forestry in this country, giving a striking
example of its benefits in Minnesota, and
beginning to educate the public, the National
Forest Reserves were administered much in
the same manner as they had always been,
and a strong feeling of resentment against them
was growing in the West, which sooner or later
seemed sure to cause their abolition. This
was a natural resentment. The forests were
simply kept from any human use whatever.
They were still under the management of the
Interior Department, which had no scientific
knowledge of forestry. At the same time the
Agricultural Department's corps of foresters
had no forests to care for.
On the first of February, 1905, this illogical
situation was remedied. The. control of the
Forest Reserves — since then called the Na-
tional Forests — was put into the hands of the
Bureau of Forestry, which was renamed the
Forest Service. It was the beginning of a
new era, in which the theory of beneficial use
was the keynote of the work.
It was at this time that the real work of
Mr. Pinchot began — the work of conducting
forestry not to save trees but to use them wisely
— trees and every other natural resource.
Up to that time the almost universal idea
was that trees were made to cut down, made
for the lumberman. So, too, with all other
natural resources, even the soil. They were
all'for immediate use, for present exploitation.
Nobody thought of the future. The land-laws
were bad, and their administration was worse.
We were cutting down the remnants of our
tree-wealth wantonly, wastefully, just as we
had cut down those in the Eastern and
Middle States. The pioneer policy was yet
in full force.
Then the first crude efforts to do better were
unscientific — withdraw the forests from use,
keep people out, don't let them cut trees at all.
You can find a sort of parallel in library
practice. A generation ago many a library
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12666 GIFFORD PINCHOT, THE AWAKENER OF THE NATION
was managed as a place merely to keep books
— to keep them, mind you. They were locked
up. They were accessible only on occasions
and to favored persons. The books must be
preserved — that was the idea. Now every
conceivable method is adopted to induce
people to use them. They are for use —
that is the idea now. Of course they must
be preserved and not wantonly destroyed;
but use is the main thing.
In the same way, forestry means the con-
• tinuous use and the best use and in the long
run by far the most profitable use of trees.
This became the dominant idea henceforth.
But the old free-and-easy, destructive, imme-
diately profitable policy dies hard — seems
dead and comes to life again. Many men
yet think that forestry means simple prohibi-
tion of all uses of trees. Many more merely
ask, What do we owe to posterity? Posterity
must take care of itself.
The policy of proper forestry was begun,
with imperfect means of execution, but it was
begun; and, in 1909, 352,434,000 board feet
of timber were cut in the National Forests —
and this cutting left them in better shape than
they were in before. More than a million
and a half cattle and horses, and nearly eight
million sheep and goats, grazed within their
borders without damage to the range and
without bloodshed between the cattle and
sheep men. Now 216,000 people live in the
National Forests, and mills, mines, power
stations, and many other activities are carried
on of benefit to the people and without damage
to the forests. And the fire loss has been
reduced to about one-half of what it was
under the old administration.
While all this is going on, the National
Forests are protecting the headwaters of
almost all the streams in the West — and the
streams are life and light and power.
All this was not accomplished without a
struggle. To some people the ideas were
revolutionary and therefore bad. Others
opposed them because they felt they meant
too much centralization. But the real oppo-
sition came from those who had benefited by
the old system of bad laws and loose methods.
They were numerous and strong and they
were hard fighters. Pinchot went West to
meet them.
In the summer of 1906, he met a cattlemen's
conference at Glenwood Springs, Colo., and
Senator Heyburn's attack on him at Bois£.
In 1907, he faced his opponents in the Denver
land convention, "packed" to rebuke him and
his policies. But nothing came of it. The
convention was discredited and its promoters
lost ground.
The culminating point of the series of batdes
came last summer, when, after the present
schism had arisen, Secretary Ballinger and
Mr. Pinchot appeared on the same platform
at the First National Conservation Congress
in Seattle, and the crowd gave Pinchot the
greater welcome. It was the Secretary's
home city and he was one of the founders of
the association which engineered this con-
vention. Yet so many people from all over
the West attended, that strong resolutions en-
dorsed the "Pinchot brand of Conservation."
In the country where Conservation is practised
it has the backing of public approval. With
Western people the five-year fight is won.
Even many men who have had trouble with
the local forest officers now fight for Pinchot
and for what he believes in.
Although Conservation yet has enemies in
the West, it has steadily won popular approval;
and the opposition to it is generally organized
and led by men who are themselves interested
in the immediate exploitation of the land.
The Tawney amendment to the appropria-
tion bill effectually crippled the National
Conservation Commission. Then the idea was
put abroad that Conservation was illegally or
extra-legally established — an utterly erroneous
idea. No one has yet pointed out an illegal
act of the Forest Service.
But the laws are insufficient to develop this
policy. Most that has been done has been
done by executive orders under laws that per-
mit such orders but that do not make them
mandatory on the Executive. Any Adminis-
tration may stop or cripple the work or per-
mit it to be demoralized by sheer neglect.
President Taft's Administration, although
his own general position is sound, has seemed
to lay more stress on the insufficiency of
the laws than on the necessity of the policy;
and this impression throughout the Govern-
ment's service has caused increasing demorali-
zation. The conduct of Mr. Ballinger as
Secretary of the Interior has emphasized this
demoralization. The Forest Service is not
under the Interior Department, but the Land
Office and the Reclamation Service are. Mr.
Ballinger began his administration without
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GIFFORD PINCHOT, THE AWAKENER OF THE NATION 12667
sympathetically seeking the help of the Service
under him and even by uncontradicted declara-
tions of a purpose to reorganize parts of it,
and of deposing Mr. Newell from the director-
ship of the Reclamation Service.
It is not pertinent to this article to take up
the controversy about Secretary Ballinger
further than to set down the unfortunate fact
that under his administration the enemies of
the whole Conservation policy have got fresh
hope and show renewed activity, and that
the service under him has felt discouragement
and demoralization. And, in spite of the
President's views and of the Report of Mr.
Ballinger and of the bills which the Adminis-
tration has prepared, the changed tone that
came with the change of Administrations
has strengthened the enemies of Conservation
in Congress. These same bills will meet
with much more difficulty than they would
have encountered if the enemies of these
measures had not understood that the
Roosevelt-Pinchot policy — as a policy —
was regarded unsympathetically by Mr.
Ballinger.
A fight, once begun, seldom proceeds
logically. This unsympathetic attitude of the
Administration, represented by Mr. Ballinger,
naturally aroused the suspicions and then the
grave fears of the working forces of Conser-
vation. The working forces of Conservation
include men in all those scientific branches
of the public service, whether under the
Interior Department or under other Depart-
ments. There is a general spirit of despon-
dency and discouragement among them at
Washington, and those in the field are greatly
demoralized. In the Reclamation Service,
for instance, a number of the best engineers
have resigned with great regret, because the
morale of the service is gone and the future
seems uncertain.
Now such men care far less than the average
citizen cares who is President or who is
Secretary, provided only that their work is
encouraged and appreciated. They are not
primarily Roosevelt men, nor Garfield men, nor
Taft men, nor Ballinger men. A President
named John Smith and a Secretary named
William Jones would have their loyalty —
be he Republican or Democrat — if the great
work that they are engaged in be permitted
to go forward. Except the officers of the army
and of the navy, they are less political or
partisan than any other group of citizens.
It was only when the Conservation policy
was definitely discouraged and set back that
Mr. Pinchot became even indirectly involved
in the controversy. But then the strongest
quality of the man began to assert itself —
the fighting quality. For any merely personal
advantage he would not fight any human
creature. In all his work he has never Con-
sidered his personal fortunes. I have heard
— whether truly or not, I do not know —
that he has always given his salary to further
the work. The story is surely characteristic.
Nor does he care for official power or authority
— except to further the work.
I know of no other case entirely parallel to
this — a man whose personal fortunes are
in no way involved, who never gave a day's
work in his life to make a dollar, who has no
political ambition nor desire for office except
for the furthering of Conservation, who knows
perhaps more nearly every square mile of
our territory than any other man, who, begin-
ning as a $2,000 clerk under Civil Service
rules, in Mr. Cleveland's time, has worked
out a great policy of more fundamental import-
ance than any other, a policy which all political
parties have accepted and which underlies
a true philosophy of national life and growth.
It was unfortunate — it was more than
unfortunate for it was a very serious mistake
of Mr. Taft's Administration — that it did
not at the very first show an active sympathy
with what Mr. Pinchot stands for. The fact
of this man's loss to the public service or of
that man's — the fact of any man's loss —
is a little matter. It is no great matter, there-
fore, that Mr. Pinchot's official services were
lost to the Government, in an atmosphere of
changed and changing relations. But it is
a very great misfortune that this great policy
should be questioned or disturbed. There was
no silly self-assertion by Mr. Pinchot, no
" riding for a fall" nor " courting the lightning,''
as the uninformed newspapers declared at the
time.
But there was this resolute man, standing
and working as he was ordained by Nature
to stand and work, for Conservation and all
that this means; and the intolerable situation
that had arisen was bound to set him squarely
over against every discouragement of Con-
servation.
Gifford Pinchot out of the public service
is the same as Gifford Pinchot in the public
service, and the forestry machinery of the
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12668 GIFFORD PINCHOT, THE AWAKENER OF THE NATION
Government is in the hands of men of his own
training (most of the foresters that we have
were trained by him or owe to him their
first inspiration). But there is this difference:
As a private citizen and President of the
National Conservation Association he will do
more active work than he could do in an
official position for the education of the people
on this subject He is still chairman, too, of
the National Conservation Commission,
After all, the proper measure of his work is
not the number of square miles of land that
he has saved for right and perpetual use, but
the changed thought of the whole nation about
the sources and perpetuation of all funda-
mental wealth. He has been a great awakener
of the people, on a subject that strikes deeper
than any political policy.
He is a first-class fighting man. But
many persons who know him only slightly
and who judge him only by his partially
reported public utterances sometimes regard
him as more quixotic than practical. He
has a gentle manner and an almost femi-
nine modesty. I think that he speaks less
often of himself than any other man I know
and never of his own exploits. His intimates
and work-fellows regard him as unselfish to
a fault. "There is a sort of knight-errant
quality in Pinchot," one of his closest asso-
ciates has declared — "a kind of noble gentle-
ness that calls out his friends' affection, but
that causes one to forget sometimes that he
can do rough work. But God save the man
who attacks Conservation! Yet he'll never
say a harsh thing about any man, nor do a
rough act But he will convince everybody
within reach that he is right and leave his
enemy to go off and become a broader and
wiser man after reflection."
The public has known him till recently
only as a zealous scientific officer of the
Government; and the frivolous public read
much about him as a "favorite" of Mr. Roose-
velt and as a member of his "tennis cabinet"
In some political circles you may now hear
talk of "Pinchot's punishment — what was
he to expect and what else ought to have
happened? — for thinking himself bigger than
the Government and for plotting for Roose-
velt's return to the Presidency," and much
other such talk that misses the right measure
of the man and of many other things besides.
True, he was and is a staunch friend of Mr.
Roosevelt, and Mr. Roosevelt is his staunch
friend — a piece of good fortune for each.
But Mr. Roosevelt owes as much to Mr.
Pinchot as Mr: Pinchot owes to Mr. Roosevelt;
and, if an invidious comparison of their mutual
debts were to be pushed hard, it would prob-
ably be found that Mr. Roosevelt is the larger
debtor, as he has many times generously
acknowledged. For Mr. Pinchot, more than
all other men, gave his Administration a policy
that outranks and will outlive all merely
political policies of this generation. But Mr.
Pinchot would at any time have opposed and
will now oppose the administration or the
public or private acts of any friend that makes
against Conservation and against the national
and private morals that underlie it He is
a Republican — witness his contribution of
$10,000 to the last national campaign fund,
for which he was much criticized. But he
came into the public service under Mr. Cleve-
land, and he would give any Democratic Admin-
istration which should stand for Conservation
as zealous help as he gave Mr. Roosevelt
He is not interested in any temporary game
of politics. He has no "political ambition"
for himself and he would not know how to
engage in political intrigue if he wished to.
But he will be more and more highly regarded
by the people as they come more fully to
understand the far-reaching meaning of his
work. As I write, a letter comes from a
practised observer of public opinion in Iowa,
who says:
"I have found but one man in my acquaintance
who does not stand for Pinchot. The people look
upon him as their friend, as the friend of Conser-
vation in its broadest sense, as a clean, unselfish,
patriotic, useful man, who has but one purpose in
all his life and work, and no man has a nobler
purpose."
Mr. Pinchot has already made a great
career, but a greater is before him. He is
now forty-four years old. He has the biggest
constructive public idea of our generation —
an idea that works for the direct personal
benefit of every dweller on our land in our
generation and in all succeeding generations.
He has no private ends to seek. He has no
private business. He has given, once for all,
his life and his time to the public welfare.
He is a well-equipped man, of prodigous
industry, of attractive personality, and of the
hardy virtues — a woodsman, a sportsman —
a man at home in all parts of our country and
with real persons of every grade of life.
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THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
ITS INVENTION NOT AN ACCIDENT BUT THE WORKING OUT OF A SCIEN-
TIFIC THEORY — BELL AND WATSON TEACHING THE INFANT TO SAY WORDS
BY
HERBERT N. CASSON
[Note — This story of the invention of the Telephone is the first article in a series which
wtU review the Telephone as it is to-day, forecast the Telephone of the future, and sum up
the progress of the Independent companies. — The Editors.]
IN THAT somewhat distant year 1875,
when the telegraph and the Atlantic
Cable were the most wonderful things
in the world, a tall young professor of elocution
was desperately busy in a noisy machine-shop
that stood in one of the narrow streets of
Boston, not far from Scollay Square. It was
a very hot afternoon in June, but the young
professor had forgotten the heat and the grime
of the workshop. He was wholly absorbed
in the making of a nondescript machine, a
sort of crude harmonica with a clock-spring
reed, a magnet, and a wire. It was a most
absurd toy in appearance. It was unlike any
other thing that had ever been made in any
country. The young professor had been toiling
over it for three years and it had constantly
baffled him, until, on this hot afternoon in June,
1875, he heard an almost inaudible sound —
a f aint twang, come from the machine itself.
For an instant he was stunned. He had been
expecting just such a sound for several months,
but it came so suddenly as to give him the
sensation of surprise. His eyes blazed with
delight, and he sprang in a passion of eager-
ness to an adjoining room in which stood a
young mechanic who was assisting him.
"Snap that reed again, Watson," cried the
apparently irrational young professor. There
was one of the odd-looking machines in each
room, so it appears, and the two were con-
nected by an electric wire. Watson had
snapped the reed on one of the machines and
the professor had heard from the other machine
exactly the same sound. It was no more than
the gentle twang of a clock-spring; but it was
the first time in the history of the world that
a complete sound had been carried along a
wire, reproduced perfectly at the other end,
and heard by an expert in acoustics.
That twang of the clock-spring was the first
tiny cry of the new-born telephone, uttered
in the clanging din of a machine-shop and
happily heard by a man whose ear had been
trained to recognize the strange voice of the
little newcomer. There, amidst flying belts
and jarring wheels, the baby telephone was
born, as feeble and helpless as any other baby,
and "with no language but a cry."
The professor-inventor, who had thus rescued
the tiny f oundling of science, was a young Scot-
tish-American. His name, now known as widely
as the telephone itself, was Alexander Graham
Bell. He was a teacher of acoustics and a stu-
dent of electricity, possibly the only man in his
generation who was able to focus a knowl-
edge of both subjects upon the problem of
the telephone. To other men that exceedingly
faint sound would have been as inaudible as
silence itself; but to Bell it was a thunder-clap.
It was a dream come true. It was an
impossible thing which had in a flash become
so easy that he could scarcely believe it. Here,
without the use of a battery, with no more
electric current than that made by a couple
of magnets, all the waves of a sound had been
carried along a wire and changed back to sound
at the farther end. It was absurd. It was
incredible. It was something which neither
wire nor electricity had been known to do
before. But it was true.
No discovery has ever been less accidental
It was the last link of a long chain of dis-
coveries. It was the result of a persistent and
deliberate search. Already, for half a year
or longer, he had known the correct theory of
the telephone; but he had not realized that
the feeble undulatory current generated by a
magnet was strong enough for the transmission
of speech. He had been taught to undervalue
the incredible efficiency of electricity.
Not only was Bell himself a teacher of the
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12670
THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
laws of speech, so highly skilled that he was
an instructor in Boston University. His
father, too, his two brothers, his uncle, and his
grandfather had taught the laws of speech in
the universities of Edinburgh, Dublin, and
London. For three generations the Bells
had been professors of the science of talking.
They had even helped to create that science
by several inventions. The first of them,
Alexander Bell, had invented a system for the
correction of stammering and similar defects
of speech. The second, Alexander Melville
Bell, was the dean of British elocutionists, a
man of creative brain and a most impressive
facility of rhetoric. He was the author of a
dozen text-books on the art of speaking cor-
rectly, and also of a most ingenious sign-
language which he called "Visible Speech."
Every letter in the alphabet of this language
represented a certain action of the lips and
tongue; so that a new method was provided
for those who wished to learn foreign languages
or to speak their own language more correctly.
And the third of these speech-improving Bells,
the inventor of the telephone, inherited the
peculiar genius of his fathers, both inventive
and rhetorical, to such a degree that as a boy
he had constructed an artificial skull, from
gutta-percha and india-rubber, which, when
enlivened by a blast of air from a hand-
bellows, would actually pronounce several
words in an almost human manner.
The third Bell, the only one of this remark-
able family who concerns us at this time, was
a young man, barely twenty-eight, at the
time when his ear caught the first cry of the
telephone. But he was already a man of some
note on his own account. He had been
educated in Edinburgh, the city of his birth,
and in London; and had in one way and
another picked up a smattering of anatomy,
music, electricity, and telegraphy. Until he
was sixteen years of age, he had read nothing
but novels and poetry and romantic tales of
Scottish heroes. Then he left home to become
a teacher of elocution in various British schools,
and by the time he was of age he had made
several slight discoveries as to the nature of
vowel-sounds. Shordy afterward, he met in
London two distinguished men, Alexander J.
Ellis and Sir Charles Wheatstone, who did
far more than they ever knew to forward Bell
in the direction of the telephone.
Ellis was the president of the London Philo-
logical Society. Also, he was the translator
of the famous book on "The Sensations of
Tone," written by Helmholtz, who, in the
period from 187 1 to 1894 made Berlin the
world-centre for the study of the physical
sciences. So it happened that when Bell ran
to Ellis as a young enthusiast and told his
experiments, Ellis informed him that Helm-
holtz had done the same things several years
before and done them more completely. He
brought Bell to his house and showed him what
Helmholtz had done — how he had kept
tuning-forks in vibration by the power of
electro-magnets, and blended the tones of
several tuning-forks together to produce the
complex quality of the human voice.
Now, Helmholtz had not been trying to invent
a telephone, nor any sort of a message-carrier.
His aim was to point out the physical basis of
music, and nothing more. But this fact that
an electro-magnet would set a tuning-fork
humming was new to Bell and very attractive.
It appealed at once to him as a student of
speech. If a tuning-fork could be made to
sing by a magnet or an electrified wire, why
would it not be possible to make a musical
telegraph — a telegraph with a piano key-
board, so that many messages could be sent
at once over a single wire? Unknown to Bell,
there were several dozen inventors then at
work upon this problem, which proved in the
end to be very elusive. But it gave him
at least a starting-point, and he forthwith
commenced his quest of the telephone.
As he was then in England, his first step was
naturally to visit Sir Charles Wheatstone, the
best known English expert on telegraphy.
Sir Charles had earned his title by many inven-
tions. He was a simple, natural scientist, and
treated Bell with the utmost kindness. He
showed him an ingenious talking-machine
that had been made by Baron de Kempelin.
At this time Bell was twenty- two and unknown;
Wheatstone was sixty-seven and famous.
And the personality of the veteran scientist
made so vivid a picture upon the mind of the
impressionable young Bell that the grand
passion of science became henceforth the
master-motif of his life.
From this summit of glorious ambition he
was thrown, several months later, into the
depths of grief and despondency. The White
Plague had come to the home in Edinburgh
and taken away his two brothers. More, it
had put its mark upon the young inventor
himself. Nothing but a change of climate.
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THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
12671
said his doctor, would put him out of danger.
And so, to save his life, he and his father and
mother set sail from Glasgow and came to the
small Canadian town of Brantford, where
for a year he fought down his tendency to
consumption, and satisfied his nervous energy
by teaching "Visible Speech" to a tribe of
Mohawk Indians.
By this time it had become evident, both to
his parents and to his friends, that young
Graham was destined to become some sort of
a creative genius. He was tall and supple,
with a pale complexion, large nose, full lips,
jet-black eyes, and jet-black hair, brushed
high and usually rumpled into a curly tangle.
In temperament he was a true scientific Bohe-
mian, with the ideals of a savant and the dis-
position of an artist. He was wholly a man of
enthusiasms, more devoted to ideas than to
people; and less likely to master his own
thoughts than to be mastered by them. He
had no shrewdness, in any commercial sense,
and very little knowledge of the small practical
details of ordinary living. He was always
intense, always absorbed. When he applied
his mind to a problem, it became at once an
enthralling arena, in which there went whirling
a chariot-race of ideas and inventive fancies.
He had been fascinated from boyhood by
his father's system of "Visible Speech." He
knew it so well that he once astonished a
professor of Oriental languages by repeating
correctly a sentence of Sanscrit that had been
written in " Visible Speech " characters. While
he had been living in London his most absorb-
ing enthusiasm had been the instruction of a
class of deaf-mutes, who could be trained to
talk, he believed, by means of the "Visible
Speech" alphabet. He was so deeply
impressed by the progress made by these
pupils, and by the pathos of their dumbness,
that when he arrived in Canada he was in a
dilemma as to which of these two tasks was
the more important — the teaching of deaf-
mutes or the invention of a musical telegraph.
At this point, and before Bell had begun to
experiment with his telegraph, the scene of the
story shifts from Canada to Massachusetts.
It appears that his father, while lecturing in
Boston, had mentioned Graham's exploits
with a class of deaf-mutes; and soon after-
ward the Boston Board of Education wrote to
Graham, offering him $500 if he would come
to Boston and introduce his system of teaching
in a school for deaf-mutes that had been recently
opened. The young man joyfully agreed,
and on the first of April, 187 1, crossed the line
and became for the remainder of his life an
American.
For the next two years his telegraphic work
was laid aside, if not forgotten. His success
as a teacher of deaf-mutes was sudden and
overwhelming. It was the educational sensa-
tion of 187 1. It won him a professorship in
Boston University; and brought so many
pupils around him that he ventured to open
an ambitious "School of Vocal Physiology,"
which became at once a profitable enterprise.
For a time there seemed to be little hope of his
escaping from the burden of this success and
becoming an inventor, when, by a most happy
coincidence, two of his pupils brought to him
exactly the sort of stimulation and practical
help that he needed and had not up to this
time received.
One of these pupils was a little deaf-mute
tot, five years of age, named Georgie Sanders.
Bell had agreed to give him a series of private
lessons for $350 a year; and as the child lived
with his grandmother in the city of Salem,
sixteen miles from Boston, it was agreed that
Bell should make his home with the Sanders
family. Here he not only found the keenest
interest and sympathy in his air-castles of
invention, but also was given permission to
use the cellar of the house as his workshop.
For the next three years this cellar was his
favorite retreat. He littered it with tuning-
forks, magnets, batteries, coils of wire, tin
trumpets, and cigar-boxes. No one outside
of the Sanders family was allowed to enter it,
as Bell was nervously afraid of having his
ideas stolen. He would even go to five or six
stores to buy his supplies, for fear that his
intentions would be discovered. Almost with
the secrecy of a conspirator, he worked alone
in this cellar, usually at night, and quite
oblivious of the fact that sleep was a necessity
to him and to the Sanders family.
"Often in the middle of the night Bell would
wake me up," said Thomas Sanders, the father
of Georgie. "His black eyes would be blazing
with excitement. Leaving me to go down to the
cellar, he would rush wildly to the barn and begin
to send me signals along his experimental wires.
If I noticed any improvement in his machine, he
would be delighted. He would leap and whirl
around in one of his ' war-dances' and then go
contentedly to bed. But if the experiment was a
failure, he would go back to his work-bench and
try some different plan."
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12672
THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
The second pupil who became a factor —
a very considerable factor — in Bell's career
was a fifteen-year-old girl named Mabel
Hubbard, who had lost her hearing, and
consequently her speech, through an attack
of scarlet-fever when a baby. She was a
gentle and lovable girl, and Bell, in his ardent
and headlong way, lost his heart to her com-
pletely; and four years later, he had the
happiness of making her his wife. Mabel
Hubbard did much to encourage Bell. She
followed each step of his progress with the
keenest interest She wrote his letters and
copied his patents. She cheered him on when
he felt himself beaten. And through her
sympathy with Bell and his ambitions, she
led her father — a widely known Boston
lawyer named Gardiner G. Hubbard — to
become Bell's chief spokesman and defender,
a true apostle of the telephone.
Hubbard first became aware of Bell's
inventive efforts one evening when Bell was
visiting at his home in Cambridge. Bell
was illustrating some of the mysteries of
acoustics by the aid of a piano. "Do you
know," he said to Hubbard, "that if I sing
the note G close to the strings of the piano,
that the G-string will answer me?" "Well,
what then?" asked Hubbard. "It is a fact
of tremendous importance," replied Bell. "It
is an evidence that we may some day have a
musical telegraph, which will send as many
messages simultaneously over one wire as
there are notes on that piano."
Later, Bell ventured to confide to Hubbard
his wild dream of sending speech over an
electric wire, but Hubbard laughed him to
scorn. "Now you are talking nonsense,"
he said. "Such a thing never could be more
than a scientific toy. You had better throw
that idea out of your mind and go ahead with
your musical telegraph, which if it is successful
will make you a millionaire."
But the longer Bell toiled at his musical
telegraph, the more he dreamed of replacing
the telegraph and its cumbrous sign-language
by a new machine that would cany, not dots
and dashes, but the human voice. "If I can
make a deaf-mute talk," he said, "I can make
iron talk." For months he wavered between
the two ideas. He had no more than the most
hazy conception of what this voice-carrying
machine would be like. At first he con-
ceived of having a harp at one end of the wire,
and a speaking-trumpet at the other, so that
the tones of the voice would be reproduced
by the strings of the harp.
Then, in the early summer of 1874, while he
was puzzling over this harp apparatus, the
dim outline of a new path suddenly glinted
in front of him. He had not been forgetful
of "Visible Speech" all this while, but had
been making experiments with two remarkable
machines — the phonautograph and the
manometric capsule, by means of which the
vibrations of sound were made plainly visible.
If these could be improved, he thought, then
the deaf might be taught to speak by sight —
by learning an alphabet of vibrations. He
mentioned these experiments to a Boston
friend — Dr. Clarence J. Blake; and he,
being a surgeon and an aurist, naturally said
— "Why don't you use a real ear?"
Such an idea never had, and probably never
could, have occurred to Bell; but he accepted
it with eagerness. Dr. Blake cut an ear from
a dead man's head, together with the ear-
drum and the associated bones. Bell took
this fragment of a skull and arranged it so that
a straw touched the ear-drum at one end and
a piece of moving smoked glass at the other.
Thus, when Bell spoke loudly into the ear,
the vibrations of the drum made tiny markings
upon the glass.
It was one of the most extraordinary inci-
dents in the whole history of the telephone.
To an uninitiated onlooker, nothing could
have been more ghastly or absurd. How
could anyone have interpreted the gruesome
joy of this young professor with the pale face
and the black eyes, who stood earnestly sing-
ing, whispering, and shouting into a dead man's
ear? What sort of a wizard must he be, or
ghoul, or madman? And in Salem, too, the
home of the witchcraft superstition! Cer-
tainly it would not have gone well with Bell
had he lived two centuries earlier and been
caught at such black magic.
What had this dead man's ear to do with
the invention of the telephone? Much. Bell
noticed how small and thin was the ear-drum,
and yet how effectively it could send thrills
and vibrations through heavy bones. "If
this tiny disc can vibrate a bone," he thought,
"then an iron disc might vibrate an iron rod,
or at least, an iron wire." In a flash the
conception of a membrane telephone was
pictured in his mind. He saw in imagination
two iron discs, or ear-drums, far apart and
connected by an electrified wire, catching the
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THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
12673
vibrations of sound at one end, and repro-
ducing them at the other. At last he was
on the right path, and had a theoretical knowl-
edge of what a speaking telephone ought
to be. What remained to be done was to
construct such a machine and find out how
the electric current could best be brought
into harness.
Then, as though Fortune suddenly felt
that he was winning this stupendous success
too easily, Bell was flung back by an avalanche
of troubles. Sanders and Hubbard, who had
been paying the cost of his experiments,
abruptly announced that they would pay no
more unless he confined his attention to the
musical telegraph, and stopped wasting his
time on ear-toys that never could be of any
financial value. What these two men asked
could scarcely be denied, as one of them was
his best-paying patron and the other was the
father of the girl whom he hoped to many.
"If you wish my daughter," said Hubbard,
"you must abandon your foolish telephone."
Bell's "School of Vocal Physiology," too, from
which he had hoped so much, had come to an
inglorious end. He had been too much
absorbed in his experiments to sustain it. His
professorship had been given up, and he had
no pupils except Georgie Sanders and Mabel
Hubbard. He was poor, much poorer than
his associates knew. And his mind was torn
and distracted by the contrary calls of science,
poverty, business, and affection. Pouring
out his sorrows in a letter to his mother, he
said — "I am now beginning to realize the
cares and anxieties of being an inventor. I
have had to put off all pupils and classes, for
flesh and blood could not stand much longer
such a strain as I have had upon me."
While stumbling through this Slough of
Despond,* he was called to Washington by his
patent lawyer. Not having enough money
to pay the cost of such a journey, he borrowed
the price of a return ticket from Sanders and
arranged to stay with a friend in Washington,
to save a hotel bill that he could not afford.
At that time Professor Joseph Henry, who
knew more of the theory of electrical science
than any other American, was the Grand Old
Man of Washington; and poor Bell, in his
doubt and desperation, resolved to run to him
for advice.
Then came a meeting which deserves to be
historic. For an entire afternoon the two men
worked together over the apparatus that Bell
had brought from Boston, just as Henry had
worked over the telegraph before Bell was
born. Henry was now a veteran of seventy-
eight, with only three years remaining to his
credit in the bank of Time, while Bell was
twenty-eight. There was a long half-century
between them; but the youth had discovered
a New Fact that the sage, in all his wisdom,
had never known.
"You are in possession of the germ of a
great invention," said Henry, "and I would
advise you to work at it until you have made
it complete."
"But," replied Bell, "I have not got the
electrical knowledge that is necessary."
" Get it," responded the aged scientist
"I cannot tell you how much these two
words have encouraged me," said Bell after-
ward, in describing this interview to his parents.
"I live too much in an atmosphere of dis-
couragement for scientific pursuits; and such
a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds
would indeed seem to most minds scarcely
feasible enough to spend time in working
over."
By this time Bell had moved his workshop
from the cellar in Salem to 109 Court Street,
Boston, where he had rented a room from
Charles Williams, a manufacturer of electrical
supplies. Thomas A. Watson was his assist-
ant, and both Bell and Watson lived nearby,
in two cheap little bedrooms. The rent of
the workshop and bedrooms, and Watson's
wages of nine dollars a week, were being paid
by Sanders and Hubbard. Consequently,
when Bell returned from Washington, he was
compelled by his agreement to devote himself
mainly to the musical telegraph, although his
heart was now with the telephone. For
exactly three months after his interview with
Professor Henry, he continued to plod ahead,
along both lines, until, on that memorable hot
afternoon in June, 1875, the full twang of the
clock-spring came over the wire, and the
telephone was born.
From this moment, Bell was a man of one
purpose. He won over Sanders and Hubbard.
He converted Watson into an enthusiast He
forgot his musical telegraph, his "Visible
Speech," his classes, his poverty. He threw
aside a profession in which he was already
locally famous. And he grappled with this
new mystery of electricity, as Henry had
advised him to do, encouraging himself with
the fact that Morse, who was only a painter,
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12674
THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
had mastered his electrical difficulties, and
there was no reason why a professor of acoustics
should not do as much.
The telephone was now in existence, but
it was the youngest and feeblest thing in the
nation. It had not yet spoken a word. It
had to be taught, developed, and made fit
for the service of the irritable business world.
All manner of discs had to be tried, some
smaller and thinner than a dime and others of
steel boiler-plate, as heavy as the shield of
Achilles. In all the books of electrical science,
there was nothing to help Bell and Watson
in this journey they were making through an
unknown country. They were as chartless
as Columbus had been in 1492. Neither they
nor anyone else had acquired any experience
in the rearing of a young telephone. No one
knew what to do next. There was nothing
to know.
For forty weeks — long exasperating weeks
, — the telephone could do no more than gasp
and make strange inarticulate noises. Its
educators had not learned how to manage
it. Then, on March 10, 1876, it talked. It
said distinctly — "Mr. Watson, come here, I
want you." Watson, who was at the lower
end of the wire, in the basement, dropped
the receiver and rushed with wild joy up three
flights of stairs to tell the glad tidings to Bell.
"I can hear you!" he shouted breathlessly.
"I can hear the words."
It was not easy, of course, for the weak young
telephone to make itself heard in that noisy
workshop. No one, not even Bell and Watson,
was familiar with its odd little voice. Usually
Watson, who had a remarkably keen sense
of hearing, did the listening; and Bell, who
was a professional elocutionist, did the talking.
And day by day the tone of the baby instrument
grew clearer — a new note in the orchestra of
civilization.
On his twenty-ninth birthday, Bell received
his patent, No. 174,465 — "the most valuable
single patent ever issued" in any country.
He had created something so entirely new that
there was no name for it in any of the world's
languages. In describing it to the officials
of the Patent Office, he was obliged to call it
"an improvement in telegraphy," when, in
truth, it was nothing of the kind. It was as
different from the telegraph as the sign language
of a deaf-mute is from the eloquence of a great
orator.
Other inventors had worked from the stand-
point of the telegraph; and they never did,
and never could, get any better results than
signs and symbols. But Bell worked from
the standpoint of the human voice. He cross-
fertilized the two sciences of acoustics and
electricity. His study of "Visible Speech"
had trained his mind so that he could mentally
see the shape of a word as he spoke it He
knew what a spoken word was, and how it
acted upon the air, or the ether, that carried
its vibrations from the lips to the ear. He was
a third-generation specialist in the nature of
speech, and he knew that for the transmission
of spoken words there must be "a pulsatory
action of the electric current which is the exact
equivalent of the aerial impulses."
Bell knew just enough about electricity, and
not too much. He did not know the possible
from the impossible. "Had I known more
about electricity, and less about sound," he
said, "I would never have invented the tele-
phone." What he had done was so amazing,
so foolhardy, that no trained electrician could
have thought of it. It was "the very hardi-
hood of invention," and yet it had not in any
sense been a chance discovery. It was the
natural output of a mind that had been led
to assemble just the right materials for such
a product.
As though the very stars in their courses
were working for this young wizard with the
talking wire, the Centennial Exposition in
Philadelphia opened its doors exactly two
months after the telephone had learned to talk.
Here was a superb opportunity to let the wide
world know what had been done, and
fortunately Hubbard was one of the Centennial
Commissioners. By his influence a small
table was placed in the Department of Educa-
tion, in a narrow space between a stairway
and a wall, and on this table was deposited
the first of the telephones.
Bell had no intention of going to the Cen-
tennial himself. He was too poor. Sanders
and Hubbard had never done more than pay
his room-rent and the expense of his experi-
ments. For his three or four years of invent-
ing he had received nothing as yet — nothing
but his patent. In order to live, he had been
compelled to reorganize his classes in "Visible
Speech," and to pick up the raveled ends of
his neglected profession.
But one Friday afternoon, toward the end
of June, his sweetheart, Mabel Hubbard, was
taking the train for the Centennial; and he
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THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
12675
THE FIRST TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD, BOSTON, 1877
went to the depot to say good-bye. Here Miss
Hubbard learned for the first time that Bell
was not to go. She coaxed and pleaded, with-
out effect. Then, as the train was starting,
leaving Bell on the platform, the affectionate
young girl could no longer control her feelings
and was overcome by a passion of tears. At
this the susceptible Bell, like a true Sir Gala-
had, dashed after the moving train and sprang
aboard, without ticket or baggage, oblivious
of his classes and his poverty and of all else
except this one maiden's distress. "I never
saw a man," said Watson, "so much in love
as Bell was."
As it happened, this impromptu trip to the
Centennial proved to be one of the most timely
acts of his life. On the following Sunday
afternoon the judges were to make a special
ONE-FOURTH OF THE LARGEST SWITCHBOARD IN THE WORLD TO-DAY
The Cortland Exchange, New York City, which employs 210 girls, who operate about 8,000 lines, connecting
about 14,000 telephones, some of them being among the busiest in the city
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12676
THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
MR. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL L\T 1874
The year before ihe birth of the telephone
MR. GARDINER H HUBBARD
Mr. Bell's father-in-law and benefactor
MR. THOMAS A. WATSON IN 1878 MR. THEODORE N. VAIL IN 1878
He was Mr. Bell's assistant for several years in the experiments that He is now president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company,
finally led to the invention of the telephone commonly known as the 3ell Telephone Company
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THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
12677
_J
WE
HAVE
I
HAD
A
■
CORK-
-ING
TIME
1
SOUND WAVES IMPINGING UPON THE DIAPHRAGM OF A TELEPHONE RECEIVER
Mr. Roosevelt's message from the Republican National Convention
tour of inspection, and Mr. Hubbard, after
much trouble, had obtained a promise that
they would spend a few minutes examining
BelPs telephone. By this time it had been
on exhibition for more than six weeks, with-
out attracting the serious attention of anybody.
When Sunday afternoon arrived, Bell was
at his little table, nervous, yet confident. But
hour after hour went by, and the judges did
not arrive. The day was intensely hot, and
they had many wonders to examine. There
was the first electric light, and the first grain-
binder, and the musical telegraph of Elisha
Gray, and the marvelous exhibit of printing
telegraphs shown by the Western Union
Company. By the time they came to Bell's
table, through a litter of school-desks and
blackboards, the hour was seven o'clock, and
every man in the party was hot, tired, and
hungry. Several announced their intention
of returning to their hotels. One took up a
telephone receiver, looked at it blankly, and
put it down again. He did not even place it
to his car. Another judge made a slighting
remark which raised a laugh at Bell's expense.
Then a most marvelous thing happened —
such an incident as would make a chapter
in "The Arabian Nights Entertainments."
Accompanied by his wife, the Empress
Theresa, and by a bevy of courtiers, the
Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro de Alcantara,
walked into the room, advanced with both
hands outstretched to the bewildered Bell, and
exclaimed: "Professor Bell, I am delighted to
see you again." The judges at once forgot
the heat and the fatigue and the hunger. Who
was this young inventor, with the pale com-
plexion and black eyes, that he should be
the friend of Emperors ? They did not know,
and for the moment even Bell himself had
forgotten, that Dom Pedro had once visited
Bell's class of deaf-mutes at Boston University.
He was especially interested in such humani-
tarian work, and had recently helped to
organize the first Brazilian school for deaf-
mutes at Rio de Janeiro. And so, with the
tall, blond-bearded Dom Pedro in the centre,
the assembled judges and scientists — there
were fully fifty in all — entered with unusual
zest into the proceedings of this first telephone
matinee.
A wire had been strung from one end of the
THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE TELEPHONE
109 Court St., Boston, where Messrs. Bell and Watson had their work-
shop in 1875
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12678
THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
DR. BELL OPENING THE FIRST DIRECT TELEPHONE LINE FROM NEW YORK TO CHICAGO
room to the other, and while Bell went to the
transmitter, Dom Pedro took up the receiver
and placed it to his ear. It was a moment of
tense expectancy. No one knew clearly what
was about to happen, when the Emperor, with
a dramatic gesture, raised his head from the
receiver and exclaimed with a look of utter
amazement: "My God — */ talksl"
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THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
12679
Next came to the receiver the oldest scientist
in the group, the venerable Joseph Henry,
whose encouragement to Bell had been so
timely. He stopped to listen, and, as one of
the bystanders afterward said, no one could
forget the look of awe that came into his
face as he heard that iron disc talking with
a human voice. "This," said he, "comes
nearer to overthrowing the doctrine of the
conservation of energy than anything I ever
saw."
Then came Sir William Thomson, latterly
known as Lord Kelvin. It was fitting that
he should have been there, for he was the
foremost electrical scientist at that time in the
world, and had been the engineer of the first
Atlantic Cable. He listened and learned
what even he had not known before — that
a solid metallic body could take up from the
air all the countless varieties of vibrations
produced by speech, and that these vibrations
could be carried along a wire and reproduced
exactly by a second metallic body. He nodded
his head solemnly as he rose from the receiver.
"It does speak," he said emphatically. "It
is the most wonderful thing I have seen in
America."
So, one after another, this notable company
of men listened to the voice of the first tele-
phone, and the more they knew of science, the
less they were inclined to believe their ears.
The wiser they were, the more they wondered.
To Henry and Thomson, the masters of
electrical magic, this instrument was as sur-
prising as it was to the man in the street. And
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THE FIRST TELEPHONE "CENTRAL"
A connection of banks and business firms was made here (342 Wash-
ing Street, Boston) in 1877, before a telegraph company had been
organized. The exchange was on the top floor
TELEPHONE BOOTHS ON THE FLOOR OF THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE
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12680
THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
THE SUMMER OFFICE OF THE GENERAL MANAGER
OF TWENTY-FIVE FACTORIES, WHO CONDUCTED HIS
BUSINESS BY 'PHONE DURING HIS VACATION
THE OUTFIT OF A SHEEP HERDER IN MONTANA. THE
USUAL METHOD, IN TREELESS DISTRICTS, IS TO MAKE
USE OF THE TOP STRAND OF A BARBED-WIRE FENCE
A LADY OF PORTLAND, ME., WHO HAD A TELEPHONE
INSTALLED AFTER SHE HAD PASSED HER 96th BIRTH-
DAY AND COULD NO LONGER VISIT HER FRIENDS
A FOREST RANGER OF THE GOVERNMENT AND HIS
EMERGENCY TELEPHONE — OF GREAT SERVICE IN THE
WEST WHEN A FOREST FIRE BREAKS OUT
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THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
1 2681
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THE MODERN USE OF THE TELEPHONE IN A RESTAURANT
TELEPHONING WHILE TRAVELLING IN A PULLMAN CAR
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THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE
12683
both were noble enough to admit frankly their
astonishment in the reports which they made
as judges, when they gave Bell a Certificate of
Award. "Mr. Bell has achieved a result of
transcendent scientific interest," wrote Sir
William Thomson. "I heard it speak dis-
tinctly several sentences. ... I was
by judges and scientists. Sir William Thom-
son and his wife ran back and forth between
the two ends of the wire like a pair of delighted
children. And thus it happened that the crude
little instrument that had been tossed into an
out-of-the-way corner became the star of the
Centennial. It had been given no more than
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHINESE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE IN 1897
astonished and delighted. ... It is the
greatest marvel hitherto achieved by the elec-
tric telegraph."
Until nearly ten o'clock that night the
judges talked and listened by turns at the
telephone. Then, next morning, they brought
the apparatus to the judges' pavilion, where
for the remainder of the summer it was mobbed
eighteen words in the official catalogue, and
here it was acclaimed as the wonder of wonders.
It had been conceived in a cellar and born in a
machine-shop; and now, of all the gifts that
our young American Republic had received
on its one-hundredth birthday, the telephone
had been honored as the rarest and most wel-
come of them all.
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A CARRARA BOX BY MR. VEDDER
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN
PAINTER
in
NEW YORK IN WAR TIME
BY
ELIHU VEDDER
I KNOW that the backings and fillings in
these Reminiscences must be very annoy-
ing to my reader, but they cannot annoy
him so much as they do me; for they are noth-
ing but gropings, on my part, in the dark of a
memory which refuses to give up its secrets.
But, confound it! What is one to do when he
has to tell of events which must have shaped
the future of a long life ?
In the time of the Commune in Paris, a poor
woman, on the verge of starvation, saved her
life by sacrificing her pet dog. As she was
MR. VEDDER'S VILLA (the one with the tower) AT CAPRI
Overlooking the Mediterranean on one side and the Bay of Naples on the other
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12685
mournfully assuaging the pangs of hunger on
the remains, she remarked sadly: "Poor Fido
— how he would have enjoyed these bones !"
And that is the way I feel while writing these
Reminiscences; they were primarily written
for those who can now no longer enjoy them.
The four years which I spent abroad were
spent by those who remained at home in
making friends and reputation; I returned to
the scene without either. To be sure, there
was Kate Field, a most loyal friend, a host in
A SILVER AMULET MADE BY YOUNG VEDDER IN CUBA
BEFORE GOING TO EUROPE
herself; through her and her good aunt Corda^
the doors of society were thrown open. ' v
Of course, I first sought Ben and went to
live with him in Hoboken. I don't know how
it is now, but then it was far from being a prom-
ising field for an artist, and so I had to try
my luck in the city. Through the kindness
of his father I was given a large room in the old
house where he had his offices — 48 Beekman
Street. At Ben's in Hoboken, up on the
heights, it was very pleasant after all; I shall
never forget the grand view over the river,
and the great city opposite, and the palace-like
A BRONZE BY MR. VEDDER
steamboats on a bright morning, on their way
to Albany, when the notes of the calliopes
came softened by the distance, as they played
such beautiful airs as — "Pop Goes the
Weasel!" And then there were some charm-
ing girls opposite who helped materially to
brighten my somewhat darkened prospects.
Ah, the girls! How good they were, and how
one girl saved me from another all through the
troublous period of the war, so that I was
able to flee away at its conclusion without hav-
ing spoken that hasty word which might have
A HEAD IN BRONZS
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12686
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
Copyright. 1906, by E. Vedder
DESIGN FOR THE DEDICATION PAGE OF THE OMAR KHAYYAM BOOK
led to much unhappiness and a leisurely worked and slept might have served for one of
repentance. the innumerable dining-rooms of General
Forty-eight Beekman Street had once been Washington. It contained a fine mantelpiece
a Colonial mansion, and the room where I and nothing else except one table, two chairs,
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12687
One mattress and a pillow, three sheets, and a
blanket A small trunk served as nightstand
on which stood one bottle serving as a candle-
stick, and one glass mug. The Boys, when
they came, sat on the chars, the table, the
trunk, or stretched themselves luxuriously on
It was there that I conceived uThe Fisher-
man11 and "The Genii," "The Roc\s F
41 The Questioner of the Sphinx," "The Lost
Mind," "The Lair of the Sea Serpent**1 etc. —
but I could not carry out the ideas. Poverty
A HYGROMETER MADE IN? ROME AND PRESENT!
MR. \V H. H^RKIMAN
the mattress — for they were many; and there
you have my surroundings. And I made my
living. Sometimes I earned a good deal of
money; sometimes next to nothing.
A SILVER-WEDDING CUP HADE fOR MR. AND MRS.
I! HAKRIMAN
has its defects. It leaves something to be
desired, such as good clothes, good food, a
studio, paints, canvas, and frames. When I
was supplied with these things I painted my
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AN UNPUBLISHED OMAR KHAYYAM DRAWING
de for the dinner of the Omar Club, London, March 23, 1899. Mr, Vedder's genius has probably been
brought to the attention of more people by his Omar illustrations than by any other single achirvrmem — and
Omar also is better known thereby
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12689
pictures, was noticed, sold them, and have
never been in absolute want since.
It was in this bare room, kneeling at the
window one night, that I made my great
prayer — almost the last. I only asked for
guidance, not for anything else, and it was an
honest prayer. The only answer was — the
brick walls and iron shutters. Long after,
I did indeed make one more prayer in my
Idea, $.50; Idea with suggestive sketch, $1.50;
drawn on block, $5. But I found that my
training, such as it was, was too serious for the
touch-and-go style then in vogue. I never
aspired to draw cartoons or full-page illus-
trations; the two Stevens brothers who ran the
paper reserved these for themselves.
Then came the period of comic valentines for
the MacG. These were horrible things, but,
AN OMAR KHAYYAM VASE
A FOUNTAIN SOLD TO MR. LOUIS TIFFANY
deepest distress; but that was for another —
an innocent life; but it was found that the great
laws could not be disturbed for such a small
matter, in fact, were not disturbed in the
least — and I have never prayed since. Lack
of faith, perhaps? Perhaps.
And I made a living. Looking back, I
hardly know how I managed it, but I did.
At first, I tried to draw for Vanity Fair;
drawn on graphotype blocks, were cheap
enough to suit the publisher. The funny
thing about it was that he insisted on my
making the verses — poetry, he called it —
as well. He said: "You artists can make
anything but money." Here I called on
the Boys and we set to work writing them
and had great fun, for we instilled all our
stories and personal jokes into these things.
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THE EVOLUTION OF JANE JACKSON INTO "THE CUM^EAN SIBYL"
All passed undetected by the good publisher,
who thought them fine.
And then a rosy-gilled, prosperous calis-
thenic man gave me much work in the way of
illustrating a book that he was getting up,
the drawings consisting of figures showing the
action by dotted lines until they looked like
multitudinously armed Indian gods. This
was the period of the wooden dumb-bell; we
had not arrived at the period of breathing
deeply or chewing slowly. This person would
go through his exercises, whistling " Yankee
" LAZARUS "
Copyright, 1898. by EJibu v eoorr
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Doodle," and looking the while like a great
ape, and I used to pretend not to catch the
idea until he was in a raging perspiration,
thus making him take his own medicine.
Then Kate Field's uncle bought several
little pictures that I had brought with me
from Florence. But that did not help
matters; it was only a stop-gap, and the
trouble went on.
Serious book-illustrations were unknown in
the beginning of that short period, at least
with us, but were established before it was
through. It commenced about the time that
I made those now-forgotten illustrations for
"Enoch Arden." I escaped all these dangers
and got back to my painting. Now, of course,
illustration ranks with the best work done.
Yet it will be noticed that aU illustrators long
to paint, and do so as soon as they can break
away. There are some great fellows who do
both; no need of my troubling about them;
they can take care of themselves.
I joined the Athenaeum Club; I joined it to
have some place to stay away from, being so
homeless. There I saw that ruined tower, as
he called himself, N. P. Willis. He had very
small feet, of which he was duly conscious,
and three curls "right down in the middle
of his forrid." He was one of the greatest
of smaller men.
But what earthly use is there in making
a list of names of persons who are now mostly
— only names? Besides, I was too near, saw
too many defects. But I found out one thing
— that the world is not made up of the very
good or very bad, but of the great average
crowd, of the neither all-good nor all-bad.
There was a man, an inventor, and his name
was Larch. In making an invention and get-
ting out a patent he was hot concerned one little
bit whether it would work or not; his aim was
to sell the patent. He conceived a machine
in which water falling on revolving screens
was cooled by its rapid evaporation. Now
the Boys insisted that this did not take place;
that the water grew warmer the more you
turned the handle; and so they christened it
"the egg-boiler." Larch made another — a
formidable machine which he set up in the
back yard of his house. It reached to the
second floor and was made of sheet-iron. This
he filled with beans carried up by an endless
chain to the top, from whence they fell with
a fearful clatter. He called it "a grain ele-
vator," but was indicted for keeping a nuisance
and had to give up working it This the Boys
called "Larch's Sheriff-Escape."
Now my friend Hitchie was an engraver and
used visiting-cards which he moistened and
rubbed on his box-wood blocks to give a sur-
face which would catch the pencil; otherwise
they were too smooth. Seeing that where
the ink had hardened the chalky surface of the
cards, the words remained in relief after the
chalk had been washed and rubbed away, he
remarked to Larch: "This is my idea of a
process of engraving in. relief." Larch's eyes
glittered. "Give me that card," and off he
went. A few days after he burst in, with a
large piece of chalk in his hand, crying out:
"I've got it! I've got itl" — and, indeed, he
had; but it was only the germ. It caused us
no end of anxiety and excitement and hope
before the sickly plant put in an appearance.
Larch had, indeed, found it. The lump
of chalk was covered with writing in black
ink; producing from his pocket a toothbrush,
Larch rubbed the chalk vigorously, and lol —
all the written characters stood out in bold
relief. "Now," said he, "take a flat plate of
this chalk: draw on it what you please with
this liquid that I have discovered, which har-
dens the chalk; then, when all the drawing
is in relief, harden the entire block — cast it —
stereotype it — and there you have your plate
ready for printing." In his eyes it was a most
beautiful thing — to sell.
It would be heart-rending to tell of all our
failures. When by means of hydraulic pressure
the plates of chalk were made hard enough to
write on, the chalk would not brush away;
when soft enough to brush, the drawing went
also. It was then that I stepped in, and sug-
gested that a brush should be used instead of
a pen. We were thus enabled to draw on chalk
soft enough to brush away and yet leave the
drawing. This limp plant of an invention
then began to stand up without assistance
and without being watered constandy by wil-
ful falsification or something resembling it.
All this has now been long sunk in the dark sea
beyond the Garden of Memory, from whose
depths few things are rescued — the Sea of
Oblivion.
But why do I distinguish Larch as an inven-
tor ? We were all inventors, and all were trying
to invent something which would make us sud-
denly rich. It had to be sudden, for the need
of money was very pressing. Ben's father was
rich, and while he was disposed to set up Ben's
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brothers in business, for which they showed a
great inclination, he was parsimonious toward
Ben, who was trying to be a designer. When
Ben made his appearance in the old man's
office, it was always — " Now, Ben, I know just
what you are after — money, always money.
I wish I was in Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego! "
Yet Ben always got the money.
But he never got enough; and so he also
took to inventing, striving to make something
that would pay. And this he finally did:
but before that, he came out with a scheme
which provoked roars of laughter. It was to
provide a tugboat with a long boom, to the end
of which a torpedo should be attached; going
up to the enemy's vessel, the boom would be
run out, the torpedo exploded, and the enemy
sunk. We all thought this a most stupendous
joke; and yet, before the War was over,
Lieutenant Cushing blew up the Confederate
Albemarle with just such an invention.
But Ben hit it off finally. He invented a
film to be used in process-engraving, a thing
indispensable in some forms of printing, and
by this time he has made a fortune. A short
time ago I asked a publisher who was here
on a visit if he knew Ben. He said: "I should
think so; he costs us thousands of dollars for
that film of his."
My friend Hitchie, the engraver and illus-
trator, was short, stout, rosy, and had the most
winning ways I ever saw. No one could be
angry with Hitchie; he was a true pilgrim from
the Blarney stone. His good nature was so
contagious that I have known him to quit me
in Broadway and steal up behind one of the
most formidable of the Broadway Squad,
insinuate his arm under that of the policeman,
and, thus accompanied, reach the other side,
where the officer of the law would pat him on
the shoulder and bid him a most smiling fare-
well.
In the evenings, when the gas was lit in
the streets and we were returning to Hoboken,
mighty merry — he would stoop, seize the edge
of a mat in front of a shop door, and drag it
gravely behind him for half a block. Nothing
daunted him, and there was a tradition that he
got away with a keg of herrings almost under
the grocer's nose.
This I did not see, but I saw him do a thing
which filled me with dismay. He begged me
to stop a moment at a furniture dealer's not
far from my lodgings. At the entrance was a
little ftagfere prettily fitted out with silver-gilt
pitcher, bottles, and goblets. In the most
casual way he selected a goblet, and as the
dealer came forward, actually stowed it away
ostentatiously in his coat-tail pocket, under the
man's very nose, conversing affably the while
about his trouble in getting just the right bed
for a certain room in his house. I looked at
my watch, told Hitchie that I should miss my
train if I did not hurry, and rushed out of the
shop, filled with fear and anxiety. Late the
next day a messenger brought me a neat packet;
in it, beautifully polished, was the goblet
with this engraved by the not-unskilful hand
of my friend: "To V., with the best love of
D. C. H." Alas! it has disappeared — but
not the memory of that kind-hearted rogue.
On one of my returns home with a venture of
pictures, I exhibited them in rooms which I
had taken in Union Square. Hitchie had been
ill and unsuccessful; he was getting a little
better, but was not the Hitchie of the old days.
The delight of seeing me, the pleasure of help-
ing me hang my pictures, seemed to make
another man of him. One day, just as he was
leaving the house, to come to me, he was struck
down. The poor old boy — for he was always
a boy — seemed sleeping; perhaps it was better
so. The tears shed at that funeral came from
the heart.
My good stepbrother had found rooms for me
on the corner of Bond Street and Broadway,
and therefore near Phaff's. As every question
started in the studio ended with "Let's go over
to Phaff's," I became one of the Phaff crowd of
Bohemians. Phaff's was situated in the base-
ment, and the room under the sidewalk was
the den where writers and artists — the latter
mostly drawers on wood, but not drinkers of
water — met. There I saw Walt Whitman;
he had not become famous yet, and I then
regarded many of the Boys as his superiors,
as they did themselves. I really believe Phaff
himself loved the Boys.
I must have been maturing slowly — very
slowly — and pranks continued to be the order
of the day. Late one night Josephus, and it
may have been Hitchie, made me get up and let
them in. After indicating the tobacco and the
bottle, I retired to my little bedroom, begging
them to let me sleep in peace. They were
gone when I awoke in the morning, and had
shut the door, although there was nothing to
steal. But they had left much for me to con-
template. Hanging from the gas-fixture in the
middle of the room was a large coil of new rope,
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with a fine slip-noose at the end. On the
burners were two tin hats and a large bill-of-
fare from some eating-house. Below was a
milk-can, with the owner's name in copper
letters, and around its neck a necklace of brass
door-knobs, bell-pulls, and knockers. It took
me a week to get rid of the results of their mid-
night foray. Night after night I would shy
the smaller objects up and down the street
from my window; the tin hats made a fine
rumpus; the signs were burned; and the Irish
care-taker was very grateful for the milk-can,
so good to keep bread in, and for the rope,
which she used as a clothes-line. I did not
like this lark at all, especially as I had been left
out; but — dear me! How differently I look
on such things now, especially from the stand-
point of the householder. And yet, I was
then engaged on the picture afterwards known
as "The Questioner of the Sphinx."
It must not be thought that I was always
frivolous during this period, because I recount
so many frivolous incidents. A character in
. Dickens remarks that " when a man's affairs are
at the lowest ebb, he has a strange temptation,
which he does not resist, to indulge in oysters."
And then there is the thinly clad man who says
that "the weather is cold about the legs this
morning." Well, we ate many oysters and the
weather was cold about the legs at times, and
we always felt that any moment might be " our
next."
The theatres were never so full as during the
War. And it was then that this strange ten-
dency in human nature was developed. Yet,
during it all, I never wavered in my hope of
our ultimate success or in my loyalty to the
nation. I had the honor of voting for Lincoln,
and paid my tribute of honest tears when that
much-loved man was slain.
All was not beer and skittles, particularly
during my Bond Street period, for then
occurred the " Draft Riots," and things looked
pretty dark. I had already been shot once in
my youth and could not have carried a gun a
block in my left hand; the family consisted of
two, and half of it was in the Navy at Hamp-
ton Roads; and the sight of the Irish corporals
ordering men about in the Park was not en-
couraging. However, my name was down and
I stood my chance with the others in the draft.
All people who went into the army were not
John Browns. A friend of mine was going to
school at this time; meeting a boy friend in the
street, he was asked: "Well, what shall we
do about this thing?" He answered: "I don't
know: let's enlist." They did, and he became
a Libby Prison man, one of those who tun-
nelled their way out and was recaptured, and
has been more or less of an invalid ever since.
This he told me only the other day, adding that
if he had known that they were going to free the
Negroes, he would not have gone.
Then my friend Coleman came back. He
had been shot somewhere near the left corner
of his mouth, the ball coming out of his neck
under the ear; he suffered no end of pain from
pieces of jaw-bone coming out down on the
neck. Another friend, George Butler, lost his
left arm at Gettysburg, and ever afterward
made a fine martial figure with his empty
sleeve. Ned Forbes, who had been deprived
of the use of his left arm from youtti, went in as
a special artist and war-correspondent; he
managed to see everything and leave a series
of drawings of the utmost historical value.
Then there was A. Ward and his brother,
special artist at the front. Those were the
times when we made drawings of battles
(before they had taken place) for Frank
Leslie — "old man Carter," as he was called.
Longing eyes were cast on me by the news-
paper people, but I said nay, and am glad that
I did.
From the roof of the corner of Bond Street,
I saw a surging mass of rioters coming down
Broadway. Below was a solid body of police.
An American flag made its appearance from a
shop door and was passed from hand to hand
until it reached the front rank, and the black
mass of policemen swept on. The two masses
— the orderly, and the drunk and disorderly —
met opposite the old La Farge House, and
there came a sound as of chopping wood —
the meeting of clubs and skulls. The riotous
crowd seemed to melt away; coming back were
limp figures supported on either side by police-
men, with arms hanging out like the flippers
of turtles, and the blood from the broken heads
running down and collecting around the collars.
The rioters had been burning a Negro orphan
asylum, and its inmates, and hanging Negroes
to lamp-posts and burning them.
FIRST FAINT GLIMMER OF FAME
Let my friends have patience with me while
I play this affectation of Vanity. Just listen:
Each year for three years I sent a picture
to the Academy. On the first— "The
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
Questioner of the Sphinx" — Ned Mullein
perpetrated an outrageous play upon words;
the second — "The Lost Mind" — was called
by the Boys "The Idiot and the Bath-towel";
in fact, the drapery was a little thick about the
neck. The third — "The Lair of the Sea-
Serpent"— was simply "The Big Eel." I
have seen it seriously stated that I painted it
from a dead eel!
Those were the days of dear Artemus Ward.
Of course, all the Boys were his friends and
attended his lectures in full force. His lecture
on "The Babes in the Wood" was given at the
time the "Sea-Serpent" was on exhibition.
The "Babes" were mentioned only on the bill;
he never once alluded to them in the lecture.
That was his joke, and so he brought in every
thing else except the Babes — and so, he
brought in the Sea-Serpent by V. I am real
sorry I cannot tell how " The Big Eel" wriggled
in, but the point is that then I felt what Fame
was, for the first time; for, apart from the
applause of the Boys, there was a laugh of
recognition from, perhaps, three persons in the
audience. They had seen the picture; they
knew who I was; they, the Public! This, I
thought, was doing pretty well; New York was
a big city, even then, and what was one Eel
among so many?
This first glimmer of Fame soon wore off,
and I have never been proud since. Artemus
was most sympathetic. He looked so frail and
delicate that he gave an impression of one
doomed to die young. There was something
comically pathetic as he patiently waited for
the audience to catch on to his jokes; no won-
der, for it was often a case of pearls. It was
to him the man said after a lecture: "I say,
it was just as much as I could do to keep from
laffin right out two or three times."
THE EVOLUTION OF JANE JACKSON
One time I had my studio in the old Gibson
building on Broadway. I used to pass fre-
quently a near corner, where an old Negro
woman sold peanuts. Her meekly bowed head
and a look of patient endurance and resignation
touched my heart and we became friends.
She had been a slave down South, and had at
that time a son — a fine, tall fellow, she said —
in the Union Army. I finally persuaded her to
sit to me and made a drawing of her head and
also had her photograph taken. Having been
elected associate of the National Academy,
according to custom I had to send in a painting
to belong to the permanent collection, so I sent
in this study of her head and called it simply by
her name, "Jane Jackson." I went on, and I
found myself in a mood. As I always try to
embody my moods in some picture, this mood
found its resting-place in the picture of the
Cumaea Sibyl. Thus this bee from my bonnet
was finally preserved in amber varnish —
and thus Jane Jackson became the Cumaean
Sibyl.
The story of the Sibyl is well known, having
been translated from Latin into English, but
the story of the embodied mood has not been
translated. In plain English it meant: If you
don't buy my pictures now when they are cheap,
you will have to pay dearer for them later on.
Thus far the prediction has turned out true.
I received for "The Lair of the Sea Serpent"
$300, greenbacks, equivalent to $150 now (but
then it seemed to me $1,000). I should get
more for a similar picture now, but I haven't
the slightest doubt but what they will again be
cheap enough. It has happened to many a tall
fellow before this — and will happen again.
On the day after the taking of Richmond, the
whole city went mad. People sang, danced,
hurrahed, and got drunk. The long strain
was over, and we breathed freely again. We —
that is, the Boys and myself, for we were always
together — met an old gentleman who said:
"I never was drunk in my life before, but I
am now, and / glory in it! Let us all take a
drink!"
Well, we kept the ball rolling all that day,
and I passed through many stages. The Boys
were fond of recalling how I, in the bellicose
stage, bade them all stand back four paces so
that I could show them what I could do. Lastly
I became sentimental and lachrymose, and
begged them to hold up the flag — and the last
thing I heard that night was a voice frantically
imploring them to "Hold up the Flag I" This,
for me, ended the day of the taking of Rich-
mond, but I was not proud of it.
The war being over, tired out with the
exciting life I had led and its many complica-
tions, a great longing for Europe came over me;
and so, packing my belongings, with a woefully
small amount of money, but with hopes high
burning, I again left my native land — on my
second Hegira, or flight to Europe.
[These instalments 0} Mr. Vedder's "Reminiscences" will be concluded in the next issue.]
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HOW THE MUNICIPAL COURT OF CHICAGO HAS MET
"THE GREATEST NEED IN OUR AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS"
BY
WILLIAM BAYARD HALE
fTlHERE is no subject upon which I feel so deeply as upon the necessity for reform in the
m administration of both civil and criminal law.
"To sum it all up in one phrase, the difficulty in both is undue delay.
It is not too much to say that the administration of criminal law in this country is a disgrace
to our civilization and that the prevalence of crime and fraud, which here is greatly in excess
of that in the European countries, is due largely to the failure of the law and its administrar-
tors to bring criminals to justice.
"But reform in our criminal procedure is not the only reform that we ought to have in our courts.
On the civil side of the courts there is undue delay, and this always works for the benefit of the
man with the longest purse. What the poor man needs is a prompt decision of his case, and by
limiting the appeals in cases involving small amounts of money so that there shall be a final
decision in the lower court, an opportunity is given to the poor litigant to secure a judgment in
time to enjoy it, and not after he has exhausted all his resources in litigating to the Supreme Court.
"Of all the questions that are before the American people, I regard no one as more important
than this, to wit: The improvement of the administration of justice. We must make it so that
the poor man will have as nearly as possible an opportunity in litigating as the rich man, and
under present conditions, ashamed as we may be of it, this is not the fact." — Extracts from Presi-
dent Taft's Address at Chicago, September 16, 1909.
"In my judgment, a change in judicial procedure, with a view to reducing its expense to private
litigants in civil cases and facilitating the dispatch of business and final decision in both civil and
criminal cases, constitutes the greatest need in our American institutions." — From President Taft's
Annual Message to Congress.
MRS. LILLIAN WYETH, of Roches- might buy an inexpensive satchel, and entered
ter, New York, with a baby, two it. She was in the act of negotiating a purchase
satchels, and a dress-suit case, when a man walked into the shop carrying three
arrived at the Rock Island station in the city bags, which she at once recognized as her own.
of Chicago at eight o'clock in the morning, en She called for help, and an officer arrested the
route for Lincoln, Nebraska. She set down thief. He was taken forthwith to the Harrison
her baggage at the door of the lunch-room and Street branch of the Chicago Municipal Court,
took her place at the counter to have her break- where he arrived at eleven o'clock. He was
fast. A few minutes later, looking for her immediately arraigned before Judge Gemmill,
satchels, she found them gone. She made a the trial was had, and the defendant sentenced
vain search for them, and then, because all the to a year in the House of Correction. At
baby's clothes were in the satchels, started out twelve o'clock Mrs. Wyeth was able to see the
to buy other baby-clothes and a bag to put prisoner put into the jail 'bus, after which she
them in. had luncheon and, with her recovered property,
Mrs. Wyeth noticed a pawnshop on Clark at two o'clock boarded the regular train for
Street near the station, where she thought she her destination.
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A COURT THAT DOES ITS JOB
In the Civil Branch of the Chicago Munici-
pal Court, Emily Galindo brought a suit for
$1,000 against the S. Lederer Company, char-
ging assault and false imprisonment. The
date was February 6th. The writ was return-
able on February nth. On February nth, the
earliest date possible under the law, the case
was tried by Judge Goodnow and a jury, and a
verdict for the plaintiff for $200 was rendered
on that day.
This article is a story of a court which has
found out how a law-breaker may be sentenced
the very day his offense is committed, and how
a civil suit may be brought at an expense of
$2 and judgment had on the return of the
summons five days later. The Municipal
Court of Chicago is daily doing for those who
seek its aid what it did for Mrs. Wyeth and
Emily Galindo.
It is the story of how a new idea has
guaranteed to the inhabitants of the second
largest city in the Union swift justice —
the sort of justice the general lack of which
President Taft is repeatedly declaring con-
stitutes the greatest reproach on American
institutions. The new idea is: the appli-
cation to the business of administering justice
of one or two simple business principles
long ago acknowledged by everybody —
except judges.
It would be a good story, told with attention
to any one of half a dozen of its other aspects.
You might tell it as the romance of the evo-
lution of the old-fashioned justice of the peace
— the glorification of the citizen-magistrate,
familiar to every American town, who used
to hold " peanut-court' ' in his shabby office,
or administer wayside justice to all and sun-
dry from his tilted chair in front of the " City
Hotel." He has now become an authority
sitting in daily judgment in cases involving
millions. You may tell it as the narrative
of a remarkable result growing out of the
mutual jealousy of municipality and county
when a Western village grew into a metropolis.
You may speak of it as the birth of the most
promising agency for the delivery of American
cities from the terrorism of corrupt police
gangs. You may describe it as a move-
ment which promises to restore the entire
judiciary of the nation to its original posi-
tion as one of the three co-equal branches
into which the powers of government were
divided by the Constitution. However you
tell it, you have a narrative of not merely
striking interest, of curious interest, but of
far-reaching importance.
THE "j. P." GLORIFIED
The Municipal Court of Chicago was created
three years ago by a statute which but faintly
outlined the unique and powerful institution
that has sprung out of it. Up to 1906; fifty
justices of the peace and one hundred con-
stables handled Chicago's minor criminal and
civil affairs. The justices having criminal
cases were designated by the mayor at the sug-
gestion of aldermen. The constables were
often men of no character, or bad character.
Some of them were common criminals. They
extorted money; they shot citizens during the
making of levies. They made false returns.
Many times defendants did not know that they
had been sued until the constable arrived with
an execution. The justices were often the
creatures of corrupt ward politicians. So
were the bailiffs; so were the clerks of the court.
The state courts in Cook County were from two
to five years behind in their calendars.
In 1905 the Commission charged with the
framing of a new charter for the city of
Chicago took up the situation. Chicago is
still without a new charter, but this one reform
desired by the charter revisionists has been
made possible by a constitutional amendment
This abolished the office of justice of the peace
within the city limits and permitted the city to
create municipal courts, with jurisdiction and
practice in criminal and civil courts, such as
the Legislature might prescribe, within the city
limits. A bill was drafted by a committee of
five; it was passed without serious opposition,
and in 1906 became operative.
Under it, Chicago has a City Court, consist-
ing of a chief-justice and, at present, twenty-
seven associate judges. The court has a chief
bailiff and 115 deputy bailiffs, a chief clerk, and
120 deputy clerks. In addition, every police-
man in the city is, ex-officio, a deputy bailiff,
as is also the sheriff and every deputy sheriff
of Cook County. The court was primarily
constituted for the purpose of supplanting the
justice of the peace regime, but, owing to the
over-crowded calendars of the state courts,
it was given extensive jurisdiction in both civil
and criminal cases, in order to facilitate the
dispatch of legal business.
The first bench is composed of a singularly
able body of judges, among them three or four
who have been considered (and one who has
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12697
barely escaped being chosen) for the Federal
bench. No one can say how much the evo-
lution which has issued in the institution to be
found in Chicago to-day has been due to the
personality of the first chief-justice — Mr.
Harry Olson, a genius in administration, a
judge of marked ability, a vigorous asserter
of rights confided to him — a judicial Crom-
well, who might have been born to erect and
maintain against opposition such a widely
empowered court as he presides over.
ADMINISTRATION OP JUSTICE A "BUSINESS"
This court is, in a sense in which no other
existing bench parallels it, a corporate body
with singular and great powers. Its members
have full authority, each in his own branch —
fuller authority, in fact, than any other trial
judges — but they work together, systemati-
cally, and — the chief point is — under a system
(which they have themselves created) of prac-
tical direction. Eighteen of them hold their
sessions in one building, but the full bench is
required to meet at least once a month to con-
sult and transact the Court's business.
The Chicago Municipal Court is, in fact, an
institution of justice organized on modern busi-
ness lines — a well-systematized shop, so to
speak, where no man waits for work to do while
work waits Jor a man to do it; where the labors
0/ all are directed by constant watchful super-
intendence, and a mighty volume of work can
be transacted without loss oj time or energy.
The note of business-like economy, efficiency,
and speed is the one which will, perhaps, first
impress those who learn of this institution.
How is this efficiency secured? Not to go
at this point into the legal niceties of the mat-
ter, it may be said that the peculiarities of this
court are the following:
First: It has authority to make its own rules
of practice and procedure. We shall see pres-
ently what that privilege means.
Second: It is given, in the persorfofthe chief -
justice, an administrative officer charged with
unusual duties tending to unify the power of
the court. He is, undoubtedly, the most power-
ful judge on any nisi prius bench in the
country.
Let us first consider his position:
A "BUSINESS MANAGER' ' OF JUDGES
The chief-justice is elected to this office par-
ticularly, as the associate judges are to theirs,
but he exercises special authority as the exec-
utive officer of the court. No other existing
court has such an officer. He presides at the
meetings of the judges; he may summon meet-
ings; he executes the mandates of the body of
judges. In his hands is the management of
financial and other business of the court. He
is by law made superintendent of its business.
Above all, he has charge of the movement of
its calendar, the assignment of judges, and
the handling of jurors.
Last year the court heard and passed on
78,371 criminal and quasi-criminal cases and
48490 civil cases. Of these, 2,465 were tried
by jury. The chief-justice assigned these
cases each to its time and its place of trial,
assigned to each of them its judge and its
jurors. As a matter of fact, he had his clerks
arrange the calendar and assign the jurors
by mechanical methods which could show no
favoritism. The point is that the cases were
managed — that is to say, that they could be
and were so arranged for trial that no time
was lost. To each judge, each morning, was
assigned a certain number of cases. In the
course of the day, a judge might find that
he was through with his docket. He didn't
adjourn. He reported to the chief-justice's
clerk that his call was exhausted, and cases were
immediately withdrawn from other judges who
had been able to work less rapidly, or from
the calendar. Last year an average of twenty-
five cases per day were thus transferred.
In the same way, jurors are so employed
that their full time is used. Under the old
system, each judge sitting with a jury kept
twenty-four or thirty-six jurors in his court,
one or two sets being idle, if they were not
locked up considering a case, while the third
was hearing a case. Under the Chicago Munic-
ipal Court plan, each jury judge is provided
with a jury as he needs it, from a general assign-
ment room, where one set of jurors for each
jury judge, together with five or six extra sets,
are kept on call. On discharge, each jury
returns to the general assignment room and is
ready to go out to any other court room when
needed. The economy of time and expense
is evident. Under the system where each
judge secures jurors for his own use, statistics
in Chicago show that the average cost for jurors
per annum for each judge was $9,660.40. In
the Municipal Court it was $6,879.35 per
judge. The saving, therefore, has been eleven
times $2,781.05, or about $30,000 per annum —
enough to pay the salary of five judges.
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A COURT THAT DOES ITS JOB
Under the system where the judges fix the
number of deputy clerks and bailiffs, there
is no army of useless deputies and constables,
such as waylay the seeker of justice in other
cities. There are no fees going. Under strict
superintendence, the court assistants are a body
of polite, ready, informed, efficient men.
Once, in the first months of the court's his-
tory, some of the clerks thought salaries were
not what they ought to be; so they organized
a " Clerk's Republican Club." (Twenty-seven
of the twenty-eight judges were Republicans.)
The chief-justice sent for the chief deputy
clerk and asked him for the names of those who
belonged to the organization. The chief clerk
wanted to know what was the trouble, and Mr.
Harry Olson replied that he was going to ask
the judges to discharge them all at four o'clock.
"Oh," said the chief clerk, "what's the
matter?"
The chief- justice said: "I understand you
are organized to discipline the various judges
as they come up for office, because they have not
voted you enough men and money. I under-
stand that is the object of the organization."
"Oh, no!" the clerk exclaimed; "that is not
the purpose of it."
The chief- justice continued: "I want the
list. I want it before four o'clock."
"There is an easier way than that," said the
discomfited employee. " It would be easier to
disband."
" Can you disband before four o'clock?"
"Yes."
Before four they had disbanded. They
have never organized since.
A NEW TERROR FOR CORRUPT POLICE
Most important is the particular that the
city police are ex-officio bailiffs of the Municipal
Court, and, while acting as such, are responsible
to it. No single measure ever gave such hope
of salvation from a corrupt police. The min-
ute a police officer makes an arrest, or the police
desk-sergeant takes pen in hand to commit
or take bail for an offender, he becomes an
officer of the Municipal Court, and subject
to it. The minute that an inspector or the
chief receives a bunch of warrants to give out,
or a patrolman receives one or two to serve,
he comes under the jurisdiction of the Court.
If any of them, from men in the ranks up to
chief, is guilty of dereliction, or even mis-
behaves himself, he is liable to punishment
by the Court.
75 any one so lacking in imagination as to
require to be told what possibilities lie here?
There would be many a picturesque passage
if a chapter of the history of the Chicago Munic-
ipal Court should be devoted to the progres-
sive instruction by which Chief- Justice Olson
gave the police officials to understand where
the new law left them. In old days, the hand-
ling of warrants was one of the chief sources of
police graft. An inspector or a captain held
them up by the hundred, either permanently,
or until he had tipped off the offender. The
patrolmen served or failed to serve them at
their own sweet will. The return of a war-
rant was uncertain. The policeman would
lose it, or leave it at home. When he did
return it, it would be endorsed with a scrawl
11 Not found," or something of the sort, and that
was the end of it.
To-day, by a general order of the Municipal
Court, every warrant is carefully followed
through the hands of every officer who touches
it. The policeman who fails to serve it must
write on it the reason of his failure, and sign
his name. His name and star-number are
recorded by the clerk of the court when the
warrant is received by the police officer.
Litde by little, the political powers, their
"heelers" and grafters, learned that they would
have to bark up another tree — or, rather,
that it was no good barking at all.
In this connection may be told the story of
the astonishing case of a mighty man and his
humiliation. A year ago, Alderman John J.
Coughlin, who is otherwise known to fame as
" Bathhouse John," and who has always shared
with "Hinky Dink" -(Alderman Kenna) the
absolute control of the Harrison Street police
station, was arrested for breaking a newspaper
man's camera at the Grand First Ward Demo-
cratic Ball — a dissolute orgy given annually
to collect tribute from the disorderly people.
Coughlin was put on trial at the Harrison
Street station. His followers expected the
great leader to be dismissed in triumph with-
out a trial. But times had changed. Two
able and fearless judges of the Municipal Court
— Judges Gemmill and Dicker — were sitting
at the Harrison Street station then. "Bath-
house John" confessed that he had no "pull"
with them — he demanded a jury trial. In
former days, jurors would have been picked up
at "Hinky Dink's" " Workingmen's Exchange"
— a bunch of blear-eyed bums who would
acquit the leader and hang the complainant
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A COURT THAT DOES ITS JOB
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if that were suggested to them. This time
the crowd saw the jury come from the big
court house on Michigan Avenue — men who
might have been residents of Evanston or Oak
Park, detailed by the chief-justice from the
of the sort that has made Chicago a city of
unrebuked corruption and crime.
When Chief- Justice Olson last February tes-
tified before a New York State Commission,
inquiring into criminal courts, it was this
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CHART 1. CRIMINAL AND QUASI-CRIMINAL CASES AND PRELIMINARY HEARINGS FILED AND
DISPOSED OF FOR THE TWO YEARS ENDING NOVEMBER 30, 1009
regular panel. Coughlin was acquitted, and
rightly acquitted, but the very fact that an
alderman, and he the most powerful in the
city, had had to stand trial, and instant trial,
like any other mortal, and be dealt with on the
evidence — that was a terrible blow to feudalism
feature, the control of the police by the court,
which particularly interested Mr. Charles F.
Murphy, a member of the Commission.
On the other hand, it should be said that
under the new condition of things in Chicago,
the police have protection against injustice
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A COURT THAT DOES ITS JOB
at the hands of magistrates. Policemen here
deal with a court of record, with judges elected
for long terms and at fixed salaries, and against
any one of whom they may complain to the
assembled body of judges. There is a " square
deal" for the policeman in Chicago, as well
as for the public, as there is not in every city.
THE ADMINISTRATOR AT WORK
Exactly as does the manager of a business
concern, the chief-justice signs all vouchers for
by a punctilious one, so that a court which was
falling into slouchy ways is laced up to proper
decorum.
The chief-justice, as administrative head,
keeps constant watch of the progress of the
court's business, expediting it at this point or
at that. He "keeps books" on every judge,
and every class of cases. An auditor lays on
the chief-justice's desk at the end of every
month a complete report of the transactions
of the court during that month. At a glance
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CHART 2.
CIVIL CASES FILED AND DISPOSED OF BY THE MUNICIPAL COURT OF CHICAGO
FOR THE THREE YEARS ENDING NOVEMBER 80, 1909
expenditures; indeed, Mr. Olson O. K.'s all
requisitions in his own handwriting.
The administrator is able to safeguard the
repute of the court in minor matters, as well
as to direct its efficiency in major ones. It is
found, for instance, that constant criminal work
is hard; some judges bear it ill. They are
easily relieved. Judges get into ruts; they fall
under narrowing influences; they contract care-
less manners. Change may improve the judge,
and tone up the court. So the chief-justice
takes care that a careless judge is succeeded
he sees what class of cases, if any — civil or
criminal, jury or judicial contracts or torts —
lag behind. He assigns an extra judge to that
class of cases for the coming month, that the
calendar may be kept up to date all along.
The Chicago Municipal Court has put into
use many time-saving devices such as any mod-
ern business man employs. It has abandoned
ponderous and wordy records written in an
obsolete lingo; it keeps its records in abbrevia-
tions filed away in something like card-cata-
logues. It has abolished all supernumerary
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A COURT THAT DOES ITS JOB
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parasitical officers, and all superfluous details
of procedure. Good order is maintained, but
red tape and technicalities are not tolerated.
The judges work, and they render sworn state-
ments of their work in terms of hours per day
and days per month.
And the result is that the Chicago Municipal
Court, handling as it did during the year just
closed more than 125,000 cases, is to-day up
with its docket. A civil suit without a jury is
tried usually within two weeks of the return of
the summons, a jury case within two months.
A law-breaker faces judge or jury the day of his
Court, with an administrative head and free-
dom to make its own rules.
THIS COURT SELF-GOVERNING
Consider that second feature a little more
closely: It has lately been borne in upon stud-
ents of jurisprudence that one of the most dis-
astrous features of. the ordinary constitution of
our courts is the fact that they are not allowed
to determine their own practice and procedure.
Many, if not most, reversals by higher courts
are due to errors of the trial court in matters
of practice — technical (usually trivial) errors,
_1906 \*°7 1908 1909
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CHART S. THE DECREASE IN CRIME IN CHICAGO AS SHOWN BY THE STATISTICS OF
THE DEPARTMENT OF POLICE
offense, the day after, or within a week. A
continuance is granted for reasonable cause, but
rarely does a week intervene, while a fortnight's
delay would be most extraordinary and unusual.
The chief-justice's auditor has been so good
as to prepare for me the accompanying diagrams
showing (Chart No. 1) the relation between
offense and trial; (Chart No. 2) between
docketing of suit and judgment. The two
lines run close and parallel throughout the
year. No court on earth to-day shows the
match of this record. Any court could match
it — organized as is the Chicago Municipal
having no relation to the merits of the case.
Many state legislatures — bodies to which law-
yers gravitate, some of them with whimsical
ideas of court procedure — have undertaken
to regulate it by legislation.
Now, it was not contemplated by the founders
of American institutions that one department
of the Government should regulate another.
When the Legislature of Illinois, for example,
passed a statute requiring judges to give all
instructions to juries in writing, it manifestly
encroached upon the prerogatives of a sup-
posedly coordinate branch. The reply might
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A COURT THAT DOES ITS JOB
have been made by the judiciary of Illinois:
"We shall give our instructions, and other-
wise conduct our courts, as to us seems most fit.
If the judicial branch is to be entrusted with
the dispensing of justice, it is presumably
capable of determining the ways in which it
shall dispense justice."
But the Legislature's power over the state
courts had already become so great that it was
no longer expedient to make this reply. The
consequence of the legislative encroachment
upon the court's prerogative has been an
immense increase in appeals and reversals.
Counsel deliberately insert "snakes" in instruc-
tions which they propose to the court, and
obtain reversals on these errors as they after-
ward show up in the written record. This is
only in line with the general tendency of judicial
practice in the United States, which tends to
make the courts havens for the guilty — a ten-
dency largely the work of legislation concerning
court procedure.
The Municipal Court of Chicago was, by
the act creating it, made the master of its own
rules of practice. It might, and it did, refuse
the written-instruction rule. It made a rule
requiring the opposing counsel to make any
exception to the judges' charge before the jury
retired, and ever thereafter hold their peace.
Less than one-tenth of one per cent, of cases
decided in the Chicago Municipal Court in the
first year of its existence were reversed on appeal.
This showing has been more than maintained
subsequently. The Municipal Court being
the creator of its own rules, the Court of Appeals
may not reverse it for error of practice. The
Court of Appeals may not presume that harm
resulted to the defendant because of error of
the Municipal Court. It may only reverse
when it is of the opinion that substantial injus-
tice was done on the merits of the case.
How important and far-reaching the special
power of this court — granted through the con-
stitutional provision applicable to this court
alone in Illinois — is, may be illustrated by such
a fact as that the Municipal Court enjoys,
under it, a proceeding that no other court in
Illinois is allowed: the use of "supplemen-
tary proceedings."
Its judgments are of greater value than
those of any other local court. Last year
this three-year-old court gave judgments
aggregating $3,757,090. The Cook County
Circuit Court in the same time gave judg-
ments aggregating $1,246,275, and the Supe-
rior Court $1,444,558 — together more than
a million less than the Municipal Court.
The largest single judgment the Municipal
Court has given was for $133,000; there is now
pending before it a claim for $i,ooopoo.
REFORM MADE EASY
It is this self-governing power that has
enabled the Chicago Municipal Court to put
into operation its time-saving devices and to
simplify its procedure and its records. When
its judges see a particular in which they can
improve their methods, they do not have to
go to the Legislature and ask for a statute;
they simply issue a general order of the Court.
While the President of the United States is
calling for a commission to reform procedure
in the Federal courts, and the Governor of Illinois
has appointed a commission to look into the
methods of the state courts, while similar com-
missions are at work in other states, the Chicago
Municipal Court, under the express powers
conferred upon it, is accomplishing the reform
of obsolete methods by the simple plan of adopt-
ing rules.
Thus, on April 1st next, by such a rule,
common-law pleadings will be abolished in all
cases, the place of these technical documents
being taken by simple, straightforward state-
ments of essential facts.
Again, the Court has just adopted, as a con-
structive contribution to the study of crime,
a scheme for the recording of data concerning
criminals. This scheme, which is both scien-
tific and simple, was devised by Professor
Ross, sociologist, of the University of Wiscon-
sin, and a committee of the American Institute
of Criminal Law and Criminology. It looks
to the collection of material which will be of
greatest value to legislators, judges, and all
students of the causes and preventions of crime.
So great is its elasticity and adaptability,
and such is the celerity with which it can act,
that I believe it would be possible for the
court in a moment of emergency to set up the
machinery of justice almost instantly any-
where, in the street, if necessary, and deal with
law-breakers or judge civil issues as they mo-
mentarily arose. Consider what this would
mean in a time of riots.
An instance of the advantage of swift justice
in allaying public excitement was supplied by
this court not long since. About the time
of the Averbuch shooting by the Chief of Police,
a professional tramp, known as Dr. Ben Reit-
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man, undertook to gather together the unem-
ployed and march upon the City Hall to
demand work. Reitman is regarded as crack-
brained; nevertheless, his enterprise stirred
up a great deal of talk about anarchy reassert-
ing itself in Chicago. There were those who
thought that the agitation was promoted in
certain political quarters to divert attention
from other subjects. Reitman was arrested
for. inciting a riot. His case came up at the
Harrison Street Criminal Branch; he demanded
a jury trial. Within four days he was tried
by a jury from the body of the county before
Judge Sadler, and was acquitted. The sen-
sational talk about anarchy died out imme-
diately on the agitator's acquittal by this jury
of citizens.
THE THREE YEARS* RECORD
Speaking in Chicago, last autumn, the Presi-
dent of the United States said:
" The prevalence of crime and fraud which here
is greatly in excess of that in the European coun-
tries, is due, largely, to the failure of the law and
its administrators to bring criminals to speedy
justice."
If the President's statement be true, then
the results of three years of speedy justice in
Chicago ought to show a decrease in crime.
The record actually shows a decrease in the
number of arrests:
ARRESTS IN CHICAGO
1906 Under the Justices of the Peace . . 92,761
1907 Under the Municipal Court . . 57,490
1908 " " " " . . . . 63,993
1909 " " " " . . . . 66,397
In contrast, the record of sentences shows
an increase:
NUMBER SENTENCED
1906 Under the Justices of the Peace. . 8,876
1907 Under the Municipal Court . . 10,148
1908 " " " " . . . . 12,556
I909 .... 12,479
This is precisely what was to have been
expected, and what would result anywhere from
speedy justice such as is now dealt out in
Chicago. Last year there were 26,364 fewer
arrests than there were the last year of the
Justice of the Peace regime; but there were
3,603 more imprisonments. There are more
punished than there used to be — but there are
fewer arrested, fewer to arrest. The crimi-
nally disposed are not allowed to run at large,
committing or inciting further mischief when
they should be paying the penalty of crimes
already committed. And the deterrent effect
of the prospect of immediate punishment is at
work. The curve which, in the accompany-
ing diagram (Chart No. 3), shows the growth
of respect for the law in a community which
has begun to put the law into swift effect is,
perhaps, the most beautiful work ever wrought
by an American city; the genius of no artist
ever put more significance and hope into a
brush-stroke.
The figures of civil cases are likewise gratify-
ing. There were filed in the Municipal Court
of Chicago, in 1907, the first year of its exist-
ence, 37,104 civil cases, of which 30,877 were
disposed of within the year. In 1908, there
were filed 49,002 cases, and there were dis-
posed of 46,845. In 1909, there were filed
47,113 cases, while 48,490 were disposed of.
These figures mean that there has come into
being a court which is doing the work that a
court ought to do. It has made justice cheap,
speedy, and final. The people have learned
of it, and they resort to it in increasing num-
bers. The poor litigant finds that it awards
him an immediate judgment against which
his rich opponent may gnash his teeth in vain.
Litigants, rich or poor, find it, moreover, a
court which sees its judgments executed. It
is a court constituted to serve those who love
and seek equity, and which those with unjust
causes will not invoke.
This result, so long desired, this efficiency
in the punishment of wrongdoing and the
award of civil justice, has come through the
application to a court of what one has never
before been given — commonsense business
methods, chiefly through centralized executive
management and independence of outside
control. At last we have one court simple,
strong, accessible, and swift. It has been in
operation now for three years, and the demon-
stration of its success is complete. This year
at least two cities, Buffalo and Milwaukee,
will copy it; a dozen more, among them Phila-
delphia, St. Louis, and Atlanta, are preparing
to do so.
Why has it taken America so long to develop
an efficient court?
How long will it require to persuade our
various archaic judicial bodies of every dignity
and degree, that like efficiency is possible in
every court in the land?
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OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS
REMOVAL THE REMEDY FOR THE EVILS THAT ISOLATION AND POVERTY
HAVE BROUGHT — SOME RESULTS OF A FIRST-HAND INVESTIGATION
BY
THOMAS R. DAWLEY, JR.
[In some parts of the southern Appalachian Mountains, as in some parts of the Adirondack
and of the mountains of New England, there are districts in which the population has grown
beyond the slight power of the land to support it, so that the people have become poor and, in some
places, their isolation and consequent inbreeding have added ignorance and degeneracy to their
poverty. From a first-hand investigation Mr. Dawley has found that such conditions do exist
among the people in the least accessible parts of the Appalachian Mountains. The remedy is to
induce these people to move down to better farms or to industries, as some of them are doing.
Because great sums have been wasted in mistaken missionary work to improve the lives of people
in these places where they ought not to stay, The World's Work publishes Mr. Dawley' s article in
order, if possible, to hasten the migration from these really uninhabitable regions. — The Editors.]
THERE is a considerable section of our
country where the conditions of our
people (especially of the children)
are so deplorable as to beggar description.
It \s the mountain region known as the
Southern Appalachians. A great number of
the inhabitants are insufficiently housed, and
they do not get enough wholesome food or
sufficient clothing. Their children do not go
to school, either because they do not care to
send them, or for the very good reason that in
many localities there are no schools; and where
there are schools, the average term is only
four months of the year, and the teachers are
worthless. There are localities where these
people have intermarried, increased, and
multiplied to such an extent, with no oppor-
tunity of making a living, that they are
degenerating under the effects of poverty and
isolation.
In saying this I do not include the entire
region, for there are fine people among these
mountains, who have good valley farms, and
who grow an abundance to eat and clothe
themselves well, even though they may not
have adequate transportation facilities for
the marketing of their crops. And there
are mountain farmers who have transpor-
tation facilities, and who work and make money
with varying degrees of success, as do people
elsewhere. But poor people of the mountains,
to whom I shall refer chiefly in this article,
live in localities that are too densely popu-
lated, and that are economically uninhabitable.
I am able to state these facts of my own
knowledge because I spent the better part of
two years investigating the conditions for the
United States Government. I carried on the
investigation over a large territory, making a
house-to-house visit among the people, and
recording upon printed blanks or schedules all
the conditions under which they were found
to be living, with the amount of their crops, land
cultivated, food consumed, earnings, and total
income and expenditures for the year.
The work was the outcome of the Beveridge
amendment, a measure proposed to prohibit
the employment of children in any industrial
enterprise, other than agricultural, throughout
the United States. I was assigned to study
the conditions of the people on the farms
before they went to the mills.
I believe it is due to Dr. Charles Wardell
Stiles, of hookworm fame, that the special
investigation which I carried on was under-
taken. At that time I knew absolutely noth-
ing about child-labor in the South, nor did I
know anything about the conditions of the
people either at the mills or on the farms. My
particular field of investigation was the moun-
tains of Tennessee, North and South Carolina,
Georgia, and Alabama. With my headquarters
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OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS
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most of the time at Asheville, N. C, I spent
the winter of 1907-1908 and the following
spring, until summer, in the mountains, jour-
neying east into the Piedmont region of North
Carolina, south into South Carolina, west to the
borders of Tennessee and Georgia, and north
into Tennessee, and thence into the Great
Smoky Mountains, both north and south.
In order to get at the people and study them
in their homes, a great deal of this traveling
had to be done on horseback and in mid-
winter. I found families without poultry,
without eggs, without milk or butter, and
without sugar or molasses or sweets of any
kind. And I found the little children of
these families (as young as three years) chew-
ing tobacco because it assuaged the pangs of
hunger, and mothers giving tobacco to their
babies because "it stopped their yelling."
I have been in cabin after cabin having only
one room, in which the entire family lived,
cooked, slept, and ate, without any other fur-
niture than their rude beds, a few broken
chairs, and a rickety table. I found in such
cabins, six, eight, ten, and even sixteen children
and grandchildren growing up in ignorance,
vice, and in many instances in crime. I found
families without the simplest articles of civiliza-
tion, such as a looking-glass, a comb, a brush,
or a wash-basin.
The section of our country where these con-
ditions exist includes a mountainous region
of nine states, with a population, according to
the census of ten years ago, exceeding the com-
bined population of Montana, Wyoming, Colo-
rado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Wash-
ington, Oregon, and California. This region
has thousands upon thousands of physically
and mentally fit people, but there are entire
localities in these mountains, and many of
them, which are economically uninhabitable,
containing populations that are mentally and
morally and physically degenerating from lack
of opportunity.
It was not always easy to find this class of
people. To a traveller on the railroads and
on the highways, there was always the good
class of farming people in evidence; and,
until I learned their ways, they always re-
frained from saying much about the other class.
But one day in a quiet mountain village, just
as the fat, well-fed proprietor of the little
hotel was telling me that there were no such
people in that part of the country, a family
of nomads came tramping by. Two gaunt,
hungry-looking men went ahead, one of them
carrying a long gun and a small child in his
arms, while the other led a lean hound. Follow-
ing the men was a long-legged, awkward boy,
with his trousers reaching about half-way
down his bare legs. He carried a baby, and
behind him came an old woman, hobbling along
with the aid of a staff, and behind her a younger
woman with a frying-pan, a coffee-pot, and
a tin cup dangling at her waist. When I
asked a neighboring merchant where those
people lived, he said:
"Oh, just take the first creek you come to
and go up it — you can't miss them; and the
farther up you go, the more you will find, and
the worse they will get."
And so I went up the creeks and came in
touch with the people of poverty. I found
their cabins wherever there was a little
patch of arable land between the precipitous
rocks and hills, and even upon the mountain-
tops. Picture to yourself a solitary log cabin,
without windows or porch, on a little patch of
land capable of producing only a few bushels
of corn; and picture in one of these cabins the
haggard, old mother and the broken-down
father sitting by the fireplace, chewing tobacco
all day long, with eight or ten children, long-
haired and dirty, scattered about — and you
have a typical picture of the "farm" and of the
family of the uninhabitable places. When
you see one of these "farms" for the first time,
you may ask, Where is the barn? Barn!
There is* not a barn, not even a chicken-coop,
for miles around.
To get a more precise view of exact conditions,
let us start from the top of any one of the many
mountain spurs in this vast region. We are on
the divide. At our feet there is a tiny stream.
As it increases in volume our descent begins.
On our left we see a little cabin in a sloping
"pocket" of land. It is surrounded by rocks
and cliffs on three sides, with the mountain
stream separating it from us and our trail.
The cabin is a miserable structure of upright
boards, with great open cracks and nothing to
keep out the cold. If the sun is shining and
the day fairly warm, we may see a group of
children scattered about in the warm sunshine.
They are bare-legged and ragged. In such a
cabin as this we shall find the old crone
sitting by the fireplace, spitting tobacco-juice
into the fire. If you ask her how old she
is, she may not know; but she thinks that she
is "going on forty something:"
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OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS
She looks to be a hundred. Inside are
rude and filthy beds, rickety chairs and
table, coffee-pot, frying-pan, and battered
water-bucket; that is all. In such a cabin
as this you will not find a looking-glass,
a wash-basin, or a comb; and the "farmer,"
if he is at home, will tell you that he " made
forty bushels of corn," last season, which was
not enough to do him. Ask him how he made
any money, and he will tell you that he went
six, eight, ten — yes, I have known them to
go sixty miles — to earn it. And his total
earnings did not exceed ten dollars during the
entire year.
As we continue our journey down the moun-
tain we come to more of the cabins; and, as a
rule, the)r become a little better in appearance,
and the "farmer" may tell us that he "made
a right smart of corn last year and enough to
do him." Now we come to a cabin with a
porch, where there are wooden pegs driven into
the wall, and on the pegs are clothing, harness
for a bull, and, perhaps, a looking-glass with
a wash-basin under it. Perhaps this cabin has
a crib and an out-house of some sort.
As we get near the foot of the mountain the
country begins to open out before us; fields
give place to the little pockets of land which
we have passed, and the mule and the horse take
the place of the harnessed bull. The rude
cabins develop into houses, and the fields into
well-cultivated-farms with out-houses and stock.
And it is here tfyat we get a good meal of home
products, while we talk to the good* type of
mountain farmer, who rears his children well,
and sends them off to school to be educated.
But the great number of these prosperous
folk do not. concern a child -labor investiga-
tor. Their children do not work at home.
Neither do they or their children go to the
mills to work. That was a fact soon estab-
lished to a certainty. Some of their tenants
go, and I could find out about them, or about
the fellow up the creek with a family of eight
or ten children who had gone to the mill.
Occasionally I would hear of a fellow who had
been to the mill and returned. He could not
make a living there, and nearly starved to death,
it was said; and then I would hunt him up,
sometimes riding twenty miles to hear what
he had to say about his experience at the cotton-
mill, and he would tell me, as a rule, that he had
no children old enough to work in the mill,
and there was not much of anything that he
could work at there.
Far away in the Chilhowee Mountains of
Tennessee, where the sheriff advised me to
fill my saddle-bags with rocks and pretend that
I was a prospector looking for mines, the old
moonshiner of the "cove" stood by the corner
of his cabin holding the bridle of his old
plough-horse in one hand, and his long-barreled
rifle in the other. He told me that the revenue
officers had recently come to the cove, broken
up his neighbor's still, and burnt his cabin and
hog-meat. He said that while he had given up
making "moonshine" himself, and no longer
believed in it, he did not think it was a very nice
way for the " revenues " to treat his neighbor;
"for God knows," said he, "he is poor enough
without having everything he owns burnt up."
I asked him if any one ever went from his
locality to the cotton-mills. After a pause,
with his mind bent upon an answer to my
inquiry, he said:
"Yes, there's Mandy Cooper and Laura
Hughes down there in Tabcat. They was in
pretty poor circumstances, makin' 'bout barely
enough to live on, an' they went off to the cot-
ton-mill."
"Do you think they bettered their circum-
stances?" I asked.
"My God!" exclaimed the old fellow, "they
couldn't have worsted them."
The old moonshiner couldn't keep me over-
night, for he did not have a particle of corn
for my horse, so I rode on for ten miles before
I could find a place to stay. On the way I
stumbled upon the only industry in the local-
ity— a moonshiner's mill in a dense thicket.
It was grinding corn, probably for another
run of "moonshine." The miU resembled a
pig-pen more than anything else. A stream of
water turned the stones, which were grinding
away at the rate of about six grains of corn a
minute.
At the farmhouse where I stopped that
night, I asked about the two girls who had
gone from Tabcat to the cotton-mills. Yes,
the farmer knew them, for Mandy Cooper's
mother did the washing for his wife.
"Have they improved their condition?" I
asked.
"Wal, I don't know," said the farmer; "all
I know that Mandy was back here a while ago,
and I heard her mother ask her to stay home
and help her put in a crop, and I heard Mandy
say that she was through all the ploughin' she
was ever goin' t' do; that it was the cotton-mill
for her."
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At a little town in Jackson County, North
Carolina, where I learned that conditions
were very bad and that a great many families
had gone to the cotton-mills, I went to a
Methodist minister and asked him what he
knew about these people. He took me into
a cove scarcely more than a mile away from
the town, which possessed three or four
churches and as many schoolhouses, and
there we visited several families of women
and children living in a most abject state
of poverty and immorality.
soldier in the Confederate army, and fought all
through the Civil War. Fine old fellow. Told
me of his adventures in the Southern war, and I
told him some of mine in the Cuban war. Asked
if any one left his part of the country for the cot-
ton-mills: he told me of Sis Dockery, who was
one of his tenants. Her husband died, leaving her
six or seven kids, and she could not make a living
for them; so she pulled out and landed at the mills.
Came home on a visit, and had money saved.
Went back, and since then her father has been
down to see her; he says she is living in a nicely
furnished house and doing well; the kids are all
A REFORMED MOONSHINER
There are many who make whiskey because there is little opportunity to make anything else
"Now," said he, "you could build school-
houses and churches for these people as much
as you wanted to, but they would not go to
them. You could preach to them, too, but
what is the use ? They are hungry, and want
something to eat."
The following is taken from one of my note-
books of 1908:
"Tuesday, April 14th. Bald Creek: 18 miles
from Flag Pond, where I spent Monday night.
Stayed here last night. Mr. Hensley owns the
place, and is a well-to-do farmer, owning a lot of
good bottom land. He has taken several prizes
at international fairs for his fine apples, was a
going to school, with the exception of the big ones,
who work in the mill.
"Tuesday, i\th. Stopped at Day Book. D. F.
Young, postmaster, merchant, and farmer, reports
that from Mine Fork — a very bad locality, where
they make moonshine, shoot, fight, and 4rill —
seven families have gone to the mills in the last
six years. Annie Laws went six years ago, with ,
two illegitimate children. Two of the families '
owned their own land but lived hard. Letn"
Phillips was not worth $25 when he went* to Carp-i
Una six years ago with his wife and five children J
He now owns two lots, one double team, .and is
doing well. People leave because they are hard
up and can't make a living. Some leave or
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OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS
A " FARM " NEAR THE TOP OF A CREST
As a rule, the higher up in the mountains the people live, the worse arc the conditions
WHERE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO LIVE WITH NO VISIBLE MEANS OF SUPPORT
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OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS
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account of getting into trouble, selling whiskey and
finding themselves indicted; then they skip out,
and the authorities are glad to get rid of them."
I spent seven months on this kind of field
work, getting such results as the above extracts.
At the end of this period I returned to Wash-
ington, thoroughly convinced that the salvation
of these families was for them to leave the
mountains and go to a place where, for the
first time in their lives, they may have a
chance to make a living.
I was; however, instructed to make a more
in carrying on the work in detail in twenty-one
townships and forty-five districts, scattered
over a large area of mountain territory.
I obtained nearly nine hundred schedules
of families on the farms, each schedule contain-
ing an answer to more than one hundred
inquiries, with the age, conjugal condition,
occupation, earnings, physical condition, liter-
acy, and schooling of every member of the
family. As a total result, I had recorded on
these schedules the living conditions of fully
5,000 individuals.
A HOME TYPICAL OF THE BETTER CLASS OF COVE-DWELLERS
scientific investigation. I submitted a plan
for making a house to house canvass in certain
districts and recording upon printed schedules
the exact conditions under which the people
lived, with their earnings, crops, food con-
sumed, physical, moral, and social condition,
and their total income and expenditure. I was
instructed to put this plan into operation. I
carried on my investigations in fourteen counties
of three states and was preparing to carry the
work into Georgia and Alabama, wrhen I was
called off the job. However, I had succeeded
In addition to this detailed work, showing
just how the families live on the so-called farms,
I obtained for each district the last school
report (when there was one to be had), a spe-
cific report on the educational facilities, a des-
cription of the territory or topography of the
land, and a general summary showing the
industrial, social, moral, and sanitary conditions
of the locality, and its resources. I made a per-
sistent search for families who had left their
farms for the cotton-mills ; and on another sched-
ule blank I recorded, as far as ascertainable
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OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS
the previous conditions of these families and
their condition at the mills. Of these fam-
ilies I obtained records of three hundred,
representing, approximately, a thousand chil-
dren, who were working or had worked in the
mills, and in many cases I was able to show
just what had happened to them.
Where the Blue Ridge Mountains swing
down into South Carolina, there is a locality
known as the Dark Corner. It is the Dark
Corner because its deeds of evil and lawless-
ness have been known throughout the state for
generations. It is in the upper edge of the
naturally a country unto itself. Ever since
man can remember, it has been the domain of
the moonshiner and outlaw, and many are
the blood-curdling tales told in both states of
its illicit distilling, raids by revenue officers,
battles fought, robbery, bloodshed, and wanton
murder.
Into this Dark Corner I went to study the
conditions there. In the little hollows, up the
creeks, and over the mountain ridges are the
little cabins, abandoned now, which once held
the whiskey-makers and the whiskey-drinkers,
with their families of besotted children. Upon
TWO "COVE" HOMES
Where people live in ignorance, poverty, and immorality because they have no opportunity to make a decent living
state, bordering North Carolina, not very far
from the Georgia line, just under and partially
in the Saluda Mountains, the name given to
that part of the Blue Ridge. Two immense
mountain-spurs of almost solid rock, known
respectively as the Hogback and the Hog's
Head, shut the country in on the north and
east; and on the south, high, precipitous rocks
descend from a small, irregular plateau, which
forms the principal cove of the Dark Corner.
On the west the irregular folds of the Glassy
Mountain roll upward and crumple with the
mother range, so that the Dark Corner is
inquiring what had become of the tenants
of these cabins, I received for reply:
"They have gone to the cotton mills.,,
"We hated to see them go," said a farmer
to me, "we foresaw the depopulation of our
mountains and a scarcity of labor on our farms,
but our country is better off, and the labor we
have left is better, too."
Upon leaving the Dark Corner I rode around
mountains and down by the winding trail,
through gullies and past high cliffs with moun-
tain torrents roaring in my ears, as darkness
closed in upon me. In the bottom of a deep
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» ;
4
* -
itifcfe-
&mL$'
A "MOONSHINE" CORN MILL
" The only manufacturing plant in its locality "
gorge, at last, I could discern the dim light,
bright in the intense darkness, of a cabin in
which I might stop for the night.
THE LAST OF THE HOWARDS
A famous feudist family. In a country of industries and intercourse
with the world, such types do not continue
The light was so far below me that it seemed
as though I could toss a stone down upon it,
but by winding back and forth along the
mountain-side I soon reached the bottom of
the gorge and rode up to it. I could see the
white whiskers of a man by the blazing fire in
the fireplace, and hear him as he talked in a
deep voice. Leaning over my saddle I called
out the customary salute of "Howdy!"
The old man jumped up from his seat by
the fireplace and shouted back as he came
toward the door:
" 'Light, stranger; 'light!"
A DESERTED MOUNTAIN "FARM"
The owner at last went to the lowlands where he could make a living
As he came out, I asked him if he could put
me up for the night, and his answer was:
"If you can put up with our fare."
That was all there was to it. One of the
boys took my horse, and I was given a seat
by the fire while the old man's wife insisted
upon preparing me some supper. I watched
her as she, with a clay-pipe in her mouth,
sliced off the fat pork held against her breast,
and her daughter swabbed out the frying-pan
with a greasy rag. Biscuits were made and
baked in the same frying-pan in which the
pork was fried and the table was swabbed
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OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS
THE "FIRST CITIZEN" OF HIS LOCALITY, AND HIS FAMILY
HIS FARM OF FOUR HUNDRED ACRES
On which he raised 1,000 bushels of corn. Yet he lived in a log-house without the comforts which less capable men
in the more accessible places enjoy, and without the ordinary opportunities for his children
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A "FARM" ON POSSUM TROT, TYPICAL OF THOSE HIGH UP IN THE MOUNTAINS
**»
A HOUSE IN THE "DARK CORNER" OF SOUTH CAROLINA
A region that has been noted for its lawless deeds for several generations
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OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS
off with the same greasy rag that had been
used for the frying-pan; I ate the biscuit and
pork by the light of a kerosene lamp which
smoked all over the place because it had no
chimney. Yet I ascertained that this man
owned four hundred acres of land and made a
thousand bushels of corn, the average crop of
my North Carolina cove-dwellers being only
forty or fifty bushels. This man had plenty of
money besides, and several tenants on his land.
He gave me his bed to sleep in while he and
his wife and daughter slept in the " lean-to," his
two sons occupying the other bed in the cabiiL.
tion and its attending poverty and vice is a
crime against child-life and against civilization,
and that the assumption that these people are
living in prosperity is false. I know, moreover,
that thousands and thousands of dollars are
wasted by missionaries in trying to uplift
people who need good food and a chance to
work. The people of the uninhabitable places
can go to the industries, unless industries can
come to them; or, failing these remedies, the
awful conditions continue.
The industries are not going to the mountain-
coves. The people must go to the industries
STARTING A 32-MILE HAUL TO MARKET
The distance from market makes much of the mountain country unprofitable for agriculture
Our breakfast consisted of sodden biscuits,
fat pork, boiled rice, and coffee.
I merely mention these living conditions to
show what isolation does in some cases where
the mountaineer has ample land, is eminently
respectable, works hard, and makes enough to
support himself and family.
In conclusion, I wish to say that the people
who go from the mountain-coves even to the
mills are benefited by the change — as they
would be if they entered any other industry
where they could make a living. I do know
that any law which keeps these people in isola-
— to places where they can earn a living.
Their salvation depends upon moving out
of the uninhabitable places. It is not with
any desire to criticize the poor people of the
mountains that I write. My criticism of
conditions does not apply to those localities
where there are good farms and lands capable
of development, and where there is a sturdy
farming class of citizens, as true and worthy a
people as are to be found anywhere. But the
cove-dwellers must move or be moved from a
really uninhabitable country. To try to keep
them there by schools and churches is useless.
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
THE SUCCESSFUL WORKING OUT OF THE PLAN OF PRESENTING
MANLINESS, FAIRNESS, AND OTHER MORAL QUALITIES BY INCI-
DENTS FROM THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF CHILDREN THEMSELVES-THE
STORY OF A NEW IDEA IN THE MORAL EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG
BY
WALTER H. PAGE
[Note. — The photographs herewith shown are taken jrom Mr. FairchiUTs lessons on "The
True Sportsman" and "Personal and National Thrift" On the screen, however, the figures
are life-size. The exact words of the lecturer are used as sub-captions. — The Editors.]
TWO hundred and fifty years ago a Mora-
vian named Comenius published, in
Latin and High Dutch, the first school
book with pictures. Some of th? pictures ex-
emplified the homely virtues. His idea was that
the primitive copper-plate pictures would " en-
tice witty children to it, that they may not conceit
a torment to be in the school, but dainty fare!"
— and that children who were not "witty"
would have their attention sharpened by it.
This book ("Orbis Pictus") used drawings that
were crude to the point of absurdity, yet it was
FROM "THE TRUE SPORTSMAN"
"Here is a crowd of young sportsmen who did the thing quite right. The meet was finished, and a mega-
phone announcer had the score officially. He stood before the grand stand, and announced the winnings.
As each was given, a shout of honor came to greet the name of him who won. In such shouts of honor all should
join — even those who lost should not withhold a tribute that is fairly won. They kept the sixth great law of
sport — 'Honors for the victors, but no derision for the vanquished.'"
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
FROM "THE TRUE SPORTSMAN"
(1) "This half-mile bicycle race was on. They are making the
first round on a one-lhird-mile track. It was in a High School meet,
and considerable interest was aroused over the bicycle race, and the
rivalry between the two speedy boys was running high. The inside
boy shall be Thompson, and the other Jones."
FROM "THE TRUE SPORTSMAN"
(3) "The speed had slackened, else there might have been some
broken bones. Both rose from the ground, and as they rose the cry
of foul went ur : " \ Jones denounced his rival in words that would
not bear repeating, and was anxious for a fight. 1 thought myselt
that that was what was coming to disgrace the meet."
used as a text-book in Germany for two cen-
turies, was translated into English, and estab-
lished the author as a Luther of the schoolroom.
His fame was so wide-spread that when Presi-
dent Dunston of Harvard resigned in 1654,
tradition has it that Comenius narrowly escaped
being brought over to New England to "illumi-
nate their Colledge and country."
What Comenius did for morals with his
picture-book, the Moral Education Board
FROM "THE TRUE SPORTSMAN"
(2) "Just before the finish, Thompson looked around to see his
rival gaining on him at every stroke. The race was lost for him. His
rival had reserved his strength, and would surely pass him before the
finish. Then the foul, or accident, was done. Thompson chose
the second lane: why did he choose the second lane? Jones would
likely try to pass him in the inside lane. Thompson wavered and
swerved toward the left, putting Jones in a pocket, and as you see,
crowding him clear off the track. Was this intentional?"
FROM "THE TRUE SPORTSMAN"
(4) "Thompson straightened up his wheel, and rubbed his hip
as if it hurt; but said no word to any one to let us know that he cared
that he had fouled, for so the judges had decided. If the foul was
accidental, should he. not have been the first to express his regret and
have volunteered the decision to the boy whom he had fouled? If
he left his lane on purpose, and tried to win by holding back his
rival, then he did what no true sportsman would consider right, and
for his foul stands disgraced and despicable in their eyes."
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
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FROM 'PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"I watched a dear old lady; neat and careful of herself she seemed.
Suddenly, to my surprise, she stopped and stooped to pick some food
from out that heap of garbage. It likely is not her fault that she is
poor, and must sort the garbage pile for food. Some one has failed
her in her old age through lack of thrift."
(with its headquarters in Baltimore) is now
doing in a more ambitious way with the stere-
opticon. It reaches "the same kind of an audi-
ence — the children of the schools; and it has
the same purpose — to "entice witty children"
with pictures and tell a story. It deals exclu-
sively with that higher realm of practical
morality, instead of mixing an explanation of
the virtues with instruction as to planets and
the fields, the fish and the fowl. And its
influence as an educational factor may become
as far-reaching as that of Comenius in the
German schools.
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
44 People like to be somebody, and do something in business, the pro-
fessions, or the arts. This is the funeral procession of Whistler, the
great painter. Two nations claim him — the United States and
England. He made a name in art, and did a permanent good."
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
44 Some man lives here who has proved a 4 ne'er-do-well.' It is no
credit to his father. Father and mother may have failed |o train him
well. Perhaps he would not study, and they let him have his way.
Perhaps they let him be a loafer in his youth — and make a habit
of it."
The movement comes with no startling
message of a "new" morality, nothing that
jars theologue or pedagogue. To teach chil-
dren the simple truths — that it is unmanly
as well as wrong to lie, that it is ungentlemanly to
fight unless the cause be just, that it is con-
temptible to cheat even in boyish sports, that a
gentleman respects the aged and his parents,
that when they are grown they are expected to
earn a good living honestly — that sort of thing
is all there is to the message. The appeal is made
to the good sense that is in every boy and girl.
It is in the method of impressing the
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FROM 44 PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
44 Here a common man, of true success, no doubt, is carried from
his home to burial. From his home they take him to his church for
sacred services. His friends and relatives are glad if he leaves an
honored name. He does this if he achieves some permanent good."
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
FROM "PERSONAL AM) NATIONAL THRIFT"
" When a man's income seems assured as a noted singer, clergyman, or
lawyer, perhaps his throat will fail him, and the specialist must operate,
with no success. His income ceases."
teaching — the use of photographs from real
life projected by the stereopticon — that the
improvement is found. It does not come into
conflict with the old-fashioned idea that a boy's
righteous instincts are to be strengthened by
vigorous " thrashing" or by reading somebody's
catalogue of "Christian Evidences," nor does
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"An accident upon the street will send a man to the hospital half
dead. The surgeons amputate and bandage, and he awakes to find
himself a cripple, his occupation gone, his earnings almost nothing."
it advocate that pious talks about David and
Goliath have no efficacy. To throw upon a
screen pictures taken from a boy's life of our
own time, photographs of real boys doing the
things that every boy does or sees done, and
point out to him while he sees the picture the
difference between wrong and right, between
cheating and fair play, between contemptible-
ness and manliness — that is the method of the
Moral Education Board. And, of course,
this instruction is only a part of education and
training, the whole school life being involved
in the larger task, with the personal influence
of the teacher as the chief factor.
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FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
" Many a fortune Is disintegrated in a night. A fire destroyed the
factory. To be sure, there was insurance, but the business was at
a crisis, and could not stand the strain. Credit was not furthcoming,
and the father failed. This is the history of many a family's poverty.
Boys and girls have not a right to think: 'My father has his thou-
sands, or his millions, and ought to let me have just anything I want.'"
For example, take the lesson on "The True
Sportsman." The attention of the boys is
caught and held by screen-pictures of a bicycle
race, in which it can be plainly seen that the
boy who is losing is deliberately running into
the winner to foul him; while the meanness of
the act is yet vivid in the minds of the indig-
nant audience, the screen then lights up with
the photograph of a great play in lacrosse
which is shown as a part of "a gentleman's
game." So on throughout the lesson of an hour,
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
1 27 19
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FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"Here is a section of a tree. Each year a ring of wood is added.
That tree was planted as a seedling thirty-two years ago. Sixty years
will grow a forest of trees, useful and valuable for lumber."
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"Here is a forest under careful cultivation. Year after year the
larger trees are cut, leaving the smaller trees to grow, producing wealth.
This is national thrift."
in pictures from real life, true sportsmanship
is shown, until all of the "eight great laws of
sport" have been emphasized:
(1) Sport for sport's sake.
(2) Play the game within the rules.
(3) Be courteous and friendly in your games.
(4) A sportsman must have courage.
(5) The umpire shall decide the play.
(6) Honor for the victors, but no derision for
the vanquished.
(7) The true sportsman is a good loser in his
games.
(8) The sportsman may have pride in his suc-
cess, but not conceit.
The Board has prepared another lesson,
more clementarv, on "What Men Think
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"These boys were skating on that pond and, getting cold, they
built a fire. They needed a fire. But they have built it right against
a tree, probably one hundred years of age, and valuable for lumber
and for shade. You stop that sort of thing in some way, even if
you haw to call the park police. Usually a little talk will stop it."
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"It is not known how that particular fire was started, but many
a million-dollar fire has been started by a camp. Boys will climb
some mountain for a lark, build a camp, and start a fire. When
darkness comes, they trail for home, neglecting to extinguish the burn-
ing embers of their fire."
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"Fifty-two years ago, one evening after the sun had set, that man took a maple seedling the size of your
little finger and the length of your arm. A helper took a spade and dug a hole in which to plant its rootlets.
Then this man, at that time thirty-eight years of age, now ninety and a little over, planted that very maple, hoping
it would grow into a tree fit for shade and full of beauty. That boy there is his great-grandson. His mother,
he, and all who see the maple profit by the sight, and many an hour of cool refreshment comes to those who
now enjoy its shade. That maple tree, from its huge trunk if you should tap it, would yield a barrel of maple
sap, and many a cake of maple sugar at the sugaring-off. It is well worth while to plant a tree."
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
12721
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"It is only the upper layer of soil that is useful for farm products.
On this farm they trimmed the shrubs and cut the trees too close
along this stream, and at its flood the surface soil was washed away,
leaving a bed of shale on which nothing at all will grow."
About Boys* Fights." First, the question is
thrown at the audience: "Is it ever right to
fight ?" The answer comes upon the screen
in the form of a photograph of a canal, with a
dog struggling out of the water only to be
pushed back again by some boys.
"If I owned this dog," says the text, "I
would not let the boys abuse him, as I know
they do. The water is cold, and this is the
third time they have thrown him in. A boy
should certainly defend his dog against abuse."
It is morally certain that for some time the
dogs owned by the boys of the audience will
have an easier life.
Then, by way of contrast, the stereopticon
shows two little girls "squabbling" over a
skipping-rope, a group of street-urchins who
are determined to "bruise up" any new boy
that moves into their street, and a boy who
fights with stones and lands in the police-station.
. The close is a series of athletic contests — the
lesson of which is that this is the admirable,
manlike way for boys to find out "who's the
best man."
TWELVE YEARS' TEST OF THE IDEA
The organization in its present form is the
result of nine years of preliminary work and
three years of practical demonstration — an
expenditure of $30,000 in time and money.
The history of the movement is largely the
personal story of Mr. Milton Fairchild, of
Albany, N. Y., who is the Comenius of the
Moral Education Board.
After some years of experience in teaching
simple moral truths to children, Mr. Fairchild
began in 1897 t0 concentrate all his attention
upon the problem. In the same spirit that a
chemist studies the properties of his substances,
Mr. Fairchild studied the moral instincts in
children, and the natural processes of the for-
* ifration of moral habits.
"Boys and girls," he' says, "frequently talk
about the right and wrong of matters that
affect their own lives, and often with the sin-
cere determination to get at the right. The
secret of moral instruction appeared to lie in
some arrangement by which the teacher could
influence this natural moral discussion. I
thought at first that incidents from the news-
papers and from history could be described to
classes and used as the basis for discussion —
but words alone will not make real to children
that which they have not seen. Besides, after
the recital of the incident to be discussed, the
boys and girls want the moralizing skipped
and the next story told."
At this point came the thought of using pho-
tographs of actual life — the life of to-day.
He reasoned in this way: After a fight, the
boys discuss the right and the wrong of it for
days, sometimes for weeks. There are boy-
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"The soil thus washed from mountain-side and farm comes down
the streams and rivers as silt to clog the navigable rivers and obstruct
our harbors. It has to be dredged out at great expense."
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"Great natural reservoirs such as this are closed by damming up
the stream. The water of the spring floods is stored for use through-
out the summer drought.'
leaders in these discussions on morals. They
argue and preach the other boys into thinking
as they do about it. Could not a man arrange
in some way to take the place of the boy-leader,
whose ideas are crude? With photographs of
the fight he could probably interest a crowd of
boys in school in an intelligent argument as to
the right and wrong involved in the reality
shown on the screen, and thus assume the
place of the boy-leader.
He considered also what happens when John
comes home with a black eye and his father
asks what the fight was about. The answer
is something like this: " We were in swimming,
and I was going to dive in backward. Jack
gave me a shove sideways, and I hit my head
against a stake. I asked him if he meant any-
thing by it, and he said he did. I dared him to
FROM 'PERSONAL AND NAiiuNAL 1HKIFT"
"From these irrigation dams, canals carry the water to the plains
when the season of drought is on. Ditches distribute it to the irri-
gation farms."
come out onto the bank, and the other boys
said he dasen't; so he came out and — well, he
reached me once in the eye, but he couldn't
adone it if I hadn't aslipped in the mud." Then
the father takes John into the study, and while
the iron is hot argues it into the form of high
morality — sometimes supplementing this with
a method more vigorous than argument.
"Now, if that fight were shown on the
screen," thought Mr. Fairchild, "the instruc-
tor might have the chance which comes natu-
rally to the father. He would also have this
advantage over the father — in that he could
interrupt the argument as to the fight by show-
ing pictures of other incidents which would
help the boys to understand the principles
involved in a fight and to solve their own diffi-
culties through knowledge. In this way could
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
4 As a nation we are providing irrigation for the arid regions where
nothing but lack of rain prevents fertility."
FROM "PERSONAL AND NATIONAL THRIFT"
"Hundreds and thousands of acres that otherwise would produce little
or nothing useful are planted to fruit and vegetables."
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
12723
be grouped together a lot of facts just as real
as the fight, facts which every boy ought to
take into account when he is making up his
mind about the right and wrong of fighting.
Throughout the whole time spent in watch-
ing the pictures, a verbal argument could be
made, suited to the limited intelligence of the
boys, in explanation of a man's ideas about
fighting and other moral considerations, and
the appeal through eye and ear could be made
to the will of the boys, inciting them to per-
sonal conduct in conformity to right, the
instructor playing the part of the boy-leader
and of the father at the same time."
Mr. Fairchild talked these ideas over with
both educators and clergymen, and the theory
stood the test of criticism. In the working
out of the main idea, however, a number of
experiments were made. It was first decided
that, since these lessons would come within
the range of church instruction, the Sunday-
Schools should be asked to fit up a room for
such stereopticon talks. Then it was thought
that an independent church exclusively for
children, a church modeled after the private
school, might be organized. This Children's
Church would be for moral and religious
instruction only; it would be non-sectarian and
its graduates would be encouraged to estab-
lish their own church relations when their
course was finished. But this plan seemed too
radical.
Then, in a flash, came the thought that all
religious ideas might be omitted, and the les-
sons prepared for use in the public schools of
the entire country. "For about an hour my
mind worked over and over the plans," he says,
"and I saw the thing accomplished in imagi-
nation. The way was open; nothing blocked it;
and I saw it leading on and on through the
years to the final complete incorporation of
this purely moral instruction as a part of pub-
lic education in a great republic where reli-
gious freedom is an inalienable inheritance."
To give the idea a practical test in the
schools, Mr. Fairchild set to work to adapt
the lesson on "What Men Think About
Boys' Fights" to public school use. It is a
difficult task to reason a boy into a gentleman's
way of thinking about fights. The only
impulses that he feels when a fight is on is that
to hit, which urges him to pitch in, and that to
avoid getting "licked,". which holds him back.
This first crude lesson was given in October,
1898, in a public school in Albany. On the
evening of the same day it was delivered be-
fore the New York State Normal College,
at the invitation of its president, as an ex-
planation to teachers of a new method of moral
instruction.
The immediate results were fairly satisfactory,
but Mr. Fairchild saw that something was
wrong with his pictures. The facial expres-
sions which had to be relied upon to show emo-
tion were blurred. A magnifying-glass showed
that the trouble was in the original negatives,
and he set to work to remove the handicap.
First, he bought the "fastest" lens in the mar-
ket, but even that did not give the necessary
result. Finally he decided that no camera on
the market would take sharp, instantaneous
pictures in rapid series to tell the story vividly
and impressively, and that one must be
designed or the whole project abandoned.
For six months he worked on the design.
Then he went to the shop of a cabinet-maker
and, with the aid of a mechanic, made it him-
self — a box that looked like a suitcase; fitted
with a "swift" lens, a focal-plane shutter with
a self-capping blind, and a new kind of plate-
holder and changing device. Those were
months of intense excitement. Success with
the camera meant success in the whole plan.
He now had a camera, that would take on glass
plates photographs of unusual distinctness at
the rate of thirty a minute. No hand camera
had ever done this before.
With the best of the old and many new
pictures, "Boys' Fights" was tried out in
Boston, Springfield, Providence, and Montreal, *
before audiences of school-children, and seemed
to work.
Thus encouraged, Mr. Fairchild began the
making of a large collection of photographs
from real life; it now runs up into the thou-
sands. He found it very difficult to get just
the kind of pictures that he wanted, for no
"fake" photographs would answer. He knew
that his audiences of schoolboys would look upon
a posed photograph as a "put-up-job," and
would reject the moral application as quickly
as they reject a "goody-goody" story.
Five years had been spent in preliminary
work, yet Mr. Fairchild patiently spent six
years more in the gathering of his negative
collection. With his camera ready for instant
service, he tramped the streets of nearly all
the large cities of the Eastern States. In 1903,
he went to England for scenes that would give
a larger scope to his argument, by showing that
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
the older civilization supported the new in its
convictions regarding morals.
By the autumn of 1905 there were enough
pictures to allow a third re-writing of the lesson
on "Boys' Fights," and for a new one on
"The True Sportsman." In 1907 a third was
written — "What I am going to Do When
I Am Grown Up." The three made a set,
so to speak — "True Sportsman," for high
schools; "Grown Up," for upper grammar;
and "Boys' Fights," for lower grammar grades.
The actual delivery of these lessons in the
public schools began in January, 1906. The
new idea was widely discussed by teachers, and
invitations began to come in from many direc-
tions. During the school year from October,
1907, to June, 1908, about 35,000 boys and
girls in the Eastern States heard one or more
of these morality lessons, and liked them.
During the next school year he made Chicago
his headquarters and delivered them to an
equally large number of children in sixteen
differefit states, from Massachusetts to North
Dakota. Most of the work was done in regular
school hours by arrangement with the school
authorities, and paid for as "special instruc-
tion." All the Washington, D. C, high schools
took "The True Sportsman." This work was
accomplished on a basis of $15 for one lesson,
and $25 for two, with expenses. Mr. Fair-
child became a traveling special instructor in
morals. The third year of lecturing brought
in $1,360. The lecturer found this sum a
scant living, but wholly inadequate for the
preparation of new lessons.
MR. BAKER FINANCES THE MOVEMENT
It was at this point that relief came from
an unexpected source. A public-spirited citi-
zen of Baltimore, Mr. Bernard N. Baker, a
trustee of Johns Hopkins University, since
retiring from business in 1907 had given a good
deal of attention to the moral education of
children and had determined to do some-
thing to promote it if he should find a hopeful
plan. Mr. Fairchild had formed what he
called "The Moral Education Board," com-
posed of those with whom he was privileged
to consult regarding the moral ideas to be
taught in these illustrated lessons, and Mr.
Baker joined it. He has now given it per-
manent offices in Baltimore, and is furnish-
ing funds for expansion. His decision to
take an active part in the enterprise came
about in this way:
Mr. Fairchild was invited by Mr. Baker to
come to Baltimore and deliver one of these
illustrated lessons in his presence. Seven hun-
dred boys of the Baltimore City College (high
school) were asked to look and listen while die
"True Sportsman" was being delivered. Mr.
Baker sat among them. Attention and inter-
est proved satisfactory and the boys voted
their approval and thanks sincerely. Every
boy had been supplied with an addressed pos-
tal card and was asked to express his opinion
of the lecture.
The responses were as convincing in lan-
guage as they were in number. Here are two
fair specimens:
" Your lecture was very entertaining and instruc-
tive. From it I have learned to take victory or
defeat as I should, no matter in what it may be."
"Your lecture was excellent, in my mind. I
enjoyed it very much, and I have many times
'yelled' at the opposing team, but I will not do it
any more, after hearing your lecture."
The teachers recognized that the lesson had
carried real influence.
Mr. Baker is now furnishing money to secure
additional pictures and is personally super-
intending the expansion of the movement.
New lessons on " Personal and National Thrift,"
"Who Is the Gentleman?" and "Who Is the
Lady?" have been prepared. "The Ethics of
the Professions," "The Ethics of Business,"
"The Law of the Schoolroom," "What
Belongs to Me and What Does Not," etc., are
in preparation. A second moral instructor
will be engaged, with headquarters at Chicago,
and as the demand for instruction increases,
others will go into the field. Slides and
manuals will also be supplied by a form of
leasing for use in schools that prefer to pro-
vide their own instructors. Institutions that
use the lessons will still be expected to pay a
nominal fee, but headquarters expenses will
be borne partly by endowment. Headquarters
are to be an incorporated educational institu-
tion under a board of trustees, not a money-
making affair.
Mr. Fairchild says: "All institutions of
learning interested in child psychology and the
practical affairs of the lives of boys and girls are
to be related by organization in some way, if pos-
sible, with the research work of the headquar-
ters of the Moral Education Board. A wealth
of effort never before contemplated is to be
expended in developing each illustrated lesson
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TEACHING MORALS BY PHOTOGRAPHS
12725
by more and more impressive pictures to the
point of intense interest and powerful influence
over the mind and will of its special audience.
Every topic of morality appropriate to public
and private schools will have its illustrated
lesson, expressing intelligent public opinion in
its topic. The members of the Moral Edu-
cation Board are our source of criticism and
enrichment for the text. A small corps of
special students of practical morality will be
trained as photographers, and sent into all
parts of the world to gather ideas and photo-
graphs, keeping a record at the time of
photographing the actual conditions of view,
for the enrichment of these lessons for American
schools."
Just what modifications the present plans
of the Moral Education Board may undergo
in the course of time no one can now forecast.
The important thing to remember is that the
men who are directly in charge of the work* are
in close touch with many of the most promi-
nent educational specialists in the country,
and the lessons are naturally prepared in accord-
ance with their ideas, since the purpose is to
make them a part of the public school system.
It is not intended that the work of this Board
shall replace anything that is now recognized
as a part of the school system.
The idea of "Illustrated Morals" has come
within sight of the point where it may become
a system of moral instruction recognized by
the schools of America. Its patron is giving it
not merely money-backing but the daily atten-
tion of a successful business man. The enthu-
siasm of the aposde is directed and made prac-
tical by the experienced conservatism of the
man of the world.
The fundamental need has been expressed by
Professor Swain of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology perhaps better than any other:
"The safety of the nation does not depend upon
whether our young people are taught the loca-
tion of Lake Titicaca or of the River Ebro, nor
upon their ability to add up columns of figures,
but it does depend upon their realization of the
obligations to their fellowmen, and the neces-
sity of playing the game of life fairly."
Mere preaching doesn't do it.
Mere reading doesn't do it.
Even personal examples of teachers and
others go only a part of the way.
The great value of the method that Mr. Fair-
child has worked out consists in this — that the
material used in teaching moral qualities are the
actions of the boys themselves in their every-
day conduct.
This may not seem a great discovery to the
merely casual reader. But to the teacher who
is confronted with the hard task of strengthen-
ing the character of the young it is practical,
concrete, definite — in a sense revolutionary.
You cannot withhold your enthusiasm at
the work that Mr. Fairchild and Mr. Baker
are doing. Mr. Fairchild has given his life
to the patient working out of the plan. He
spent all his money. He gave all his time.
He never became tired. He worked with the
certainty of success but without seeing just
how it would come. He knew that he had
worked out the application of a sound prin-
ciple, and the application was to a subject
wherein modern teaching had made no pro-
gress — had, in fact, slipped back. *
There had been new methods of teaching
arithmetic, penmanship, geography, all the
sciences, new methods of teaching law, lan-
guages, agriculture — new methods in teach-
ing everything but moral qualities. And this,
to say the least of it, is a matter of some impor-
tance in comparison with mere problems in
pedagogy.
It is some such general view of the subject
that we must take to put Mr. Fairchild's
achievement in its proper relation.
And Mr. Baker's part in furthering the work
is not less admirable. He has given not only
money to develop the work, but his time as
well. He is not "financing a movement";
he is throwing his life into it as a companion
worker with Mr. Fairchild. After conference
with the Board, he delivers addresses, puts
the lectures to the severest test, seeks the
advice of the best masters of educational
methods, and is putting the work on a busi-
ness basis. It is managed by sound financial
methods — it must ultimately pay its way, but
it must not become a money-making move-
ment. That is his principle.
He has expressed his hope in this way:
"We are endeavoring to organize an educational
institution with trustees, building, and endowment
devoted to the great cause of moral education for
the children of this nation. Of all the different
methods that have been called to my attention,
this one with pictures from real life, I believe, is the
only one that can be carried forward to reach suc-
cessfully the greatest number, and meet the require-
ments in an educational way of all schools, public
or private, free from sectarian or denominational
objection."
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THE RULERS OF THE WIRES
A SINGLE HOLDING-COMPANY CONTROLS THE POSTAL TELEGRAPH AND
THE COMMERCIAL CABLE, AND IS THE LARGEST STOCKHOLDER OF THE BELL
TELEPHONE COMPANY — A QUIET OCTOPUS AND THE MAN WHO RULES IT
BY
C M. KEYS
EVERY now and again there meets at
No. 253 Broadway, New York, a
board of seven men, which constitutes
the "unknown factor" of the wire-world on
this continent. It is the board of trustees of
the Mackay Companies. The seven men
who met at the last meeting in 1909 were
Messrs. Clarence H. Mackay, G. G. Ward,
W. W. Cook, E. C. Piatt, Dumont Clarke,
R. A. Smith, and H. K. Meredith. Mr.
Clarke has died since then, and, as this para-
graph is written, no successor has been chosen.
In Wall Street, they call this a "business"
board, as distinguished from the usual "finan-
cial" board that rules most of the big corpora-
tions. With the exception of Mr. Clarke,
none of the members was ever reckoned a
financier, and Mr. Clarke's financial stand-
ing rested upon his presidency of a great na-
tional bank alone.
Messrs. Ward, Cook, and Piatt are active
officers of the telegraph companies controlled
by the Mackay Companies. Messrs. Smith
and Meredith are Canadians, the latter being
a direct representative of the Bank of Mon-
treal, and the former a proxy for the large
stockholders of Toronto. Mr. Mackay, the
head of the board, is an "undeveloped equity"
from the estate of the late J. W. Mackay.
The seed of the consolidation, personified
in this little board of seven trustees, was sown
many years ago. Mr. J. W. Mackay, com-
ing East from the California goldfields, went
into business of many sorts. A pioneer by
instinct, he turned from the opening of the
West to the pushing of new projects wherever
new projects promised rich returns. Few of the
great new transcontinentals called to him in vain.
The business of transmitting words by cable
was new in the world, so far as commercial use
was concerned. He took to it with eagerness.
He headed a group that pushed through to
completion the original lines of the Commer-
cial Cable Company, linking the old world
with the new.
Even more daring was the establishment of
the Postal Telegraph Company, to invade
the iron-bound monopoly of land telegraphing
held since the beginning by the Western Union.
Men prophesied litde but failure of the ven-
ture — yet the infant grew. Finally, in 1897,
the 'Commercial Cable Company, grown into
a giant's strength, bought out the Postal Tele-
graph — and the name of Mackay headed the
fist of directors of the joint company.
After the death of the older Mackay, the
corftrol continued. New ambitions were born
in the minds of the men who held the reins of
power, ambitions for expansion, for consolida-
tion, for greater strength against the time-
honored enemy, the Goulds' Western Union.
In 1903, the men who had inherited power
from the pioneers formed a new association.
They capitalized it at $100,000,000 — half
in preferred stock, half in common. They
called it the Mackay Companies. They offered
to exchange for every share of the old Com-
mercial Cable stock $200 in new preferred
stock and $200 in new common stock. Most
men made the exchange. At first, it seemed
a mere swapping of names, with no great
financial meaning.
That was seven years ago, and for a time
things moved but slowly. The Mackay Com-
panies took in the conservative dividends of
the Commercial Cable, and paid them out
again in the conservative dividends of the
Mackay Companies.
Four years ago in February, the trustees
issued a report in which the new ambitions of
the company stood fairly revealed. In that
report, they made the succinct statement:
The Mackay Companies is one of the largest
stockholders in the American Telephone and.
Telegraph Company, commonly known as the
Bell Telephone Company.
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In the same report, they stated that during
the year the company had bought control
of the North American Telegraph Company,
a twenty-year-old concern that did a telegraph
business out in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa,
and Illinois.
In the next year, 1907, the simple statement
above was amplified into this:
The Mackay Companies is by far the largest
stockholder in the American Telephone & Tele-
graph Company, commonly known as the Bell
Telephone Company, its holdings being more
than four times those of any other stockholder in
that company. Your trustees believe that the
present friendly relations with that company
should be cemented in the interest of the share-
holders of both companies and also of the public
at large.
In the two following years, the cement pot
was used to fairly good effect, though not
lavishly. In the 1909 report, the progress
of the cementing was reported in a angle
sentence*
The Mackay Companies' holdings of stock of
the American Telephone & Telegraph Company,
commonly known as the Bell Telephone Com-
pany, are nearly six times larger than those of any
other stockholder.
What was going on elsewhere may be merely
indicated, no more, by the fact that in the 1906
report the trustees announced that the Mackay
Companies held stock in seventy-four other
telephone companies; while in the 1909 report
the number had grown to one hundred and two.
While the Mackay Companies wielded the
cement brush so successfully, the Western
Union fell into hot water — and the opposite
of the cementing process took place very
rapidly. The Gould estate, with the Russell
Sage estate and others of a passing genera-
tion, held the dominating interest in the
old Western Union. The troubles of the
Goulds in the panic of 1907 are too well known
to need sketching. They resulted in a great
anxiety to raise money. The Western Union
was called upon to take its share in the stock
of the New York Telephone Company, in
which it was the largest stockholder.
Its directors were not very eager. Money
was hard to get. Dividends had been cut in
the panic, and times were hard. The Wes-
tern Union decided to sell the stock of the New
York Telephone Company, instead of buying
more. Naturally, the buyer was the American
Telephone & Telegraph Company.
The process of Gould rehabilitation wait on.
More cash was wanted in the strong box of the
Gould estate. The A. T. & T. offered to
supply it, in exchange for the Gould holdings
of the Western Union. Mr. George Gould,
thinking of his many railroads, all clamoring
like hungry fledglings, sold out.
So here, for the past little while, the old
story has been reenacted on a new stage.
While the mackerel has been swallowing the
herring, the whale has been swallowing the
mackerel. Things have changed quite a bit
since five years ago.
The Mackay Companies does not as yet con-
trol the American Telephone & Telegraph
Company, and possibly never will control it.
There are many reasons against it. The chief
reason is that the men who are the leaders in
both companies know very well that the pro-
cess of consolidation is carefully watched
these days by the Government of the United
States. To make such a merger at this time
would be to invite a Government suit.
Financially, it would not be very difficult to
bring about a merger. Of course, there are
about 25,000 stockholders of the company, and
more than three-quarters of the entire stock
is owned in New England. The amount
owned by the Mackay Companies is not con-
siderable, and even if one were to find out how
much of the rest is owned by private capital-
ists in sympathy with the Mackay Companies
the aggregate would not be very much.
This condition, while possibly reassuring to
the Government and to that part of the public
which takes any interest in such matters, does
not by any means preclude the purchase of con-
trol. Experience, in the case of such corpora-
tions as the Boston & Maine, the old Rock
Island, the Northern Pacific, and many other
similar companies has demonstrated that it is
not a very difficult matter for one company,
even though new, to gather in the stocks held by
small holders. It is only a matter of offering
a favorable exchange.
The fact is that the Mackay Companies has
kept its financial position so strong that it
could offer any reasonable price for this stock.
It has never made a bond issue of any sort It
has distributed its own profits so sparingly to
the stockholders that out of what was left in
the treasuries it built the cable to Cuba a year
or so ago without any financing at all, took up
its allotment of the new stock of the Bell
Telephone Company, and built all the new
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THE RULERS OF THE WIRES
extensions of the Postal Telegraph — all with-
out borrowing a cent. In addition, it has
allowed the Commercial Cable Company to
tuck away a nice little surplus of $500,000 a
year, so that, when the time is right, there
will be ample opportunity for a good ripe
"melon" for its own stockholders.
Obviously, such a company could offer a
very good price for the Bell stock if it wanted
to do so. It could offer $200 in 4 per cent,
bonds, and the dividends, at the current rate
on the Bell stock, would pay all the interest
charges on the new bonds. That price, for
a stock worth in the market about $140 per
share, might tempt a few. If not, a few
shares of Mackay Common stock might be
added. There is hardly a capital resource
known to the financial world that the Mackay
Companies could not practice with excellent
chance for success.
But, at the present time, the Bell Company
is run by its own directors, elected by the
stockholders. These directors are a scattered
group, not a homogeneous entity such as rules
most of the big corporations of the country.
Most of them are proud to proclaim them-
selves representatives of the New England
stockholders. New Englanders still believe
that they have one of their great corporations.
Perhaps the Santa F6, the New Haven, even
the Boston & Maine, and the copper business
have slipped away from Boston — but the
Telephone remains nominally a New England
concern.
What every one in the financial district
knows, however, is that within the last five
years Boston has found the job too big. It was
all right for the Boston houses and their New
England clients to look out for the Telephone
business so long as a few hundred thousand
dollars a year measured the needs of the com-
pany for new lines, new companies, new debts.
But business is an evolution. The time came
when the Bell Telephone Company needed
far more capital than New England could sup-
ply. Instead of a few millions, $100,000,000
became a unit.
There is only one market in the United
States where men deal in $100,000,000 units.
That market is Wall Street. Therefore, the
feet of the telephone managers turned, quite
unwillingly, from the friendly offices of State
Street, Boston, to the strange, cold, and critical
offices of Wall and William Streets, New York.
The job was a big one; therefore, it needed
the biggest bankers. Messrs. Kuhn, Loeb &
Co., and J. P. Morgan & Company modestly
admitted that they were the people the Boston
Diogeftes sought The Bell Telephone Com-
pany became a client of these two firms to the
extent of $100,000,000.
When a man borrows money on a mortgage,
he pays the broker who found the money for
him a certain commission. That ends his
obligation to the broker. With a corporation
it is different. If the Bell Company borrows
through Messrs. Kuhn, Loeb & Co., and J. P.
Morgan & Co. in 1906, it is listed as a "Kuhn,
Loeb," or a "Morgan" corporation. If it
needs more money in 1908, the financial world
expects it to go to these same firms again. If
it does not, rumors fly about Much harm
can be done by rumors. Men and corpora-
tions have been ruined by rumor, more than
once. Corporation credit is so sensitive,
because so many men make up the corporation,
that these little things weigh very heavily.
Therefore, through the very act of borrow-
ing, a certain obligation has been created
between the two greatest Wall Street firms
and the Bell Telephone Company. I should
not say that either Mr. Morgan or Mr. Schiff
could forbid the Telephone Company to do
this or do that — but I have not the slightest
doubt that if Mr. Morgan or Mr. Schiff inti-
mated, ever so gently, that perhaps the direc-
tors of the Telephone Company might see their
way clear to authorize the purchase of this
outside company or that outside company —
provided the funds could be raised — the direc-
tors of the Telephone Company would at least
hear about it Nobody would even think to
ask whether either Mr. Schiff or Mr. Morgan
own a single share of Telephone stock.
So strong is this subtle sort of power in the
affairs of great corporations that it has come
to be an accepted fact in Wall Street that the
American Telegraph and Telephone Com-
pany is controlled by Mr. J. P. Morgan and
Mr. Schiff, particularly the former. The
" control, " of course, is merely the power to
dominate its policy.
Now, there has been a long and bitter fight
between the American Telephone & Tele-
graph Company and the so-called "Inde-
pendents." When, therefore, it was announced
at the close of the year that J. P. Morgan & Co,
had bought the control of a big group of Middle-
Western independent telephone companies,
Wall Street thought it very interesting. For
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it is taken for granted, rightly oTwrongly, that
there will be no fight between the independent
companies that rest in the hands of Mr. Mor-
gan, and the Bell ompany, a recent recruit to
the list of corporations whose directors sit,
metaphorically, at the feet of the modern
financial colossus.
Perhaps, therefore, the era of war is over.
If Mr. Morgan buys in the strongest of the
independents, there is left much less danger
of real fight, because the danger of con-
solidations among the scattered outsiders is
diminished. As the power of outsiders is
mobilized, in all probability the Morgan
experiment will extend enough to remove,
again, whatever group promises the greatest
resistance to the Bell interests. Mr. Morgan
is simply guarding his new client from danger.
He does not figure it will cost him anything.
In fact, presumably, he expects to make
money. But the main thing is to look ouW
for the interest of the A. T. & T., the new
Morgan client.
If we consider the Mackay Companies, the
American Telephone & Telegraph Company
and the Western Union as all one big con-
solidation, it appears to be about the flimsiest
of such consolidations. The Mackay Com-
panies absolutely controls the Postal Tele-
graph and the Commercial Cable ajid other
smaller companies. It is merely^tbe biggest
stockholder in the American Telephone &
Telegraph Company.
Again, the American Telephone & Tele-
graph Company does not control the Western
Union. It is merely the biggest stockholder
in that company. It corned much nearer,
however, to controlling it than 'the Mackay
Companies comes to controlling the American
Telephone & Telegraph, for its interest is so
big that it can elect its <tfn directors and
officers.
The inter-relation of the group of com-
panies that control nearly all the wire busi-
ness of this country is quite clear. How far
it will ultimately go depends on a variety
of factors. The first is the attitude of the
Government. The second is the attitude of
Mr. J. P. Morgan or his successors in the
power he wields. The third is the personal
ambition of Mr. Clarence Mackay, the first
trustee of the Mackay Companies.
Mr. Mackay is a "second generation"
financier. In the list of such, he is always
placed near the top; for he has to be reckoned
with in all contingencies. His personal char*
acter, his attention to business, his innate
business ability have earned for him far more
respect than his money alone could have
commanded. The financial world is not, one
might say, very warmly for him; but it is not
against him, as is usual in such cases. It is
simply lukewarm, waiting for him to take the
centre of some stage and play his part The
stage is already set; and the play is ready.
The plan and scope of the Mackay Com-
panies presupposes for the leading part the
genius and the courage of a real financial
leader.
Whether Mr. Mackay is the man or not
remains to be seen.
Certainly, some wise heads guide the des-
tinies of the company. Common sense and
progressiveness are taken for granted in the
management. The organization appears to
lack a press agent and a brass band; but it
has done some things that are worth noting as
evidences of the kind and character of its
administration.
In August, 1907, some of its employees went
on strike, in sympathy with the Western Union
strikers. At once the officers and many of the
Vclerks of the company turned in and became
operators again. At the end of twelve weeks,
the strike was broken.
Then the company itself organized "The
Postal Telegraph Employees' Association."
This concern was open, without dues or fees,
to all employees who would abjure all unions,
and it guaranteed benefits in case of sick-
ness or disability. Now, practically all the
employees of* the Postal Telegraph Company
are members.
The management also adopted the plan
of allowing employees to purchase stock, at
fair prices. At the last report more than
$2,000,000 of the company's stock was owned
by employees of the Mackay Companies, the
Postal Telegraph and the Commercial Cable
Company. This process is going on all the
time.
This company, so powerful in its financial
resources and credit, so imperturbable in its
business policies, so aloof from the trammels
of the speculative world and so capable in the
handling of its own men, is a factor to be
reckoned with. It was and is designed to be
the giant of the telephone, cable, and telegraph
world. How soon its destiny will be fulfilled
is a matter of more than passing interest.
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FOURTH ARTICLE
HOW TO REGULATE CORPORATIONS
INEVITABLE CONSOLIDATIONS -THEIR BENEFITS AND EVILS — WHAT THE
TARIFF DOES— THE RESULTS OF RAILROAD LEGISLATION. THE REMEDY
BY
JAMES J. HILL
THE tendency of interests engaged in
large industrial undertakings toward
combination is simply a part of that
cooperation in the production, the distri-
bution and the exchange of wealth with
which everybody has been familiar for cen-
turies. When the pioneers in this country
united to help build one another's houses,
when they had a " barn-raising/ * it was
combination. When the owner of land or
implements or capital in any other form
first entered into partnership with labor to
create more wealth, it was combination.
When the corporation came into existence,
through which many small amounts of capital
could be massed, it marked a new era, just as
much as when two men first lifted by their
united strength some stone or tree trunk too
heavy for them singly. Exactly as society and
the work of the community have become more
complex, so have the means by which mate-
rial ends are achieved grown larger and more
powerful. The union of numerous dis-
connected and weak railroads in one orderly
and efficient system, the substitution of one
great establishment for many small plants, are
part of the natural and inevitable evolution of
united action among men.
A MISCONCEPTION OF CAPITAL
One misconception needs to be removed at
the outset, in considering combinations of
capital. I know no theory so fallacious as
the popular conception of the nature and pur-
pose of the consolidation of wealth. It does
not mean the hoarding of money in a bag, so
that its one possessor may delve in it up to his
armpits. It means rather the effective organ-
ization of effort, the intelligent use of money
which represents exerted physical or mental
energy. The common conception of the
capitalist as a man who hoards money, and
of Wall Street as a place where the money
supply of the country may be cornered and kept,
to be doled out to the people only as they sub-
mit to terms imposed by its owners, no more
represents any existing reality than does the
picture of a dragon. For few things are more
worthless or uneasy than capital unemployed;
and wealth locked up in vaults in a great city
is just as useless to its possessor as heaps of
gold to Robinson Crusoe. Idle capital may
create a national problem, and has caused
widespread national distress, as surely as
idle labor.
The people who propose to sweep the new
business method out of existence as a public
menace forget one thing. We have reached a
stage of national development where busi-
ness must be done on a different plan from
that which served half a century ago. In 1865
we had thirty-five millions of people. To-day
we have nearly ninety millions. By the middle
of the century we shall have two hundred
millions. Less than thirty-five years ago
horse-cars filled the needs of urban transpor-
tation. To-day we could not possibly get along
without the trolley. In economic conditions,
as in physical conditions, we must keep>pace
with the times. If the masses of the people
are to continue to enjoy the prosperity and the
comforts which they desire, old-fashioned
methods are inadequate. People in this coun-
try live better to-day than they ever did before.
They are better fed, housed and clothed.
There are fewer drones in the hive, fewer
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people who share the results of work without
working themselves, less waste in the neces-
sary processes by which population is sus-
tained and business conducted.
These are consequences of the better organi-
zation of industry, of which large combina-
tions are an important feature. It is as use-
less to propose doing without them as it would
be to go back to the horse-car, or to insist that
the shoemaker at his bench should make with
his hands the entire amount of footwear used
by all the people of the country. And this
expansion and improvement of method must
continue. It will not move backward.
There has been and still is a more or less
common feeling of hostility on the part of
the public toward consolidations, though it is
yielding perceptibly to the growth of intelli-
gence and to the demonstration of benefits
in many instances by the conduct of indus-
try on a large scale. This attitude is pro-
nounced, but the reasons for it are not always
plainly stated. Some of it is due to the unfor-
tunate form taken by combination at the begin-
ning in this country. To obviate ruinous
competition, what were called " trusts' ' were
formed. Under this system the stocks of
various and competing organizations were
"trusteed" in the hands of a few men, to whom
was given arbitrary authority to do as they
pleased with the properties under their con-
trol. This was not a wholesome arrangement.
It was a cumbrous structure, and it was
declared illegal by the courts. It exists now,
if at all, secretly, and must not be confounded
with the rise of one big company out of many
small ones, which is the feature of industrial
consolidation. But it lasted long enough to
stir up prejudice that has been transferred to
some extent to a successor altogether different.
IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT TRUSTS
Most opposition, however, is based upon the
proposition that the so-called "trusts" — for
we still lack in common usage a more fitting
name for industrial combinations — work
toward monopoly. The monopolistic feature,
with its supposed control of product and com-
mand of prices, fills the public mind to such an
extent that the underlying principle has been
too little considered.
On this point several facts contrary to the
extreme monopolistic theory may be noted:
First: The largest manufacturing combina-
tion in this country does not control 50 per
cent, of the product of the commodity it
deals with.
Second: Unrestricted competition has shown
itself no unmixed blessing. In many cases it
has produced results as evil as those of com-
plete monopoly would be if such a thing
existed.
Third: No combination in this country
will ever rise superior to public opinion or
be able long to defy it. Virtual monopolies
that control through price agreements cer-
tain lines of manufactured articles would be
smashed by the abolition of protective duties
on these articles. An actual monopoly, con-
trolling all production and squeezing the people,
could and would be driven out of business by
popular revolt.
Fourth: Steadiness of prices and profits is
regarded by capital everywhere, and by every
management intelligent enough to hold its
place, as far more desirable than excessive
price and undue profits.
Fifth: It thus appears that there is a law
of balance and proportion in the operation of
consolidated industries, not at first perceived
or known, which insists upon moderation as
a condition of their very existence and will
destroy them, sooner or later, if violated.
Sixth: There is the regulative power of
actual law, exhibited in "anti- trust" statutes
all over the country, which at present tend
rather to bind industrial development harm-
fully than to allow it dangerous freedom.
Undoubtedly if consolidation should ever
threaten the public welfare or the place of
the individual as a free industrial unit, this
authority would be further asserted and
extended.
These are all valid reasons why the popular
antipathy to all forms of combination should
be laid aside, and the subject investigated
without prepossession like any other phe-
nomenon, such as different systems of land
tenure, or the value of synthetic chemistry in
manufacture, or other changes in industrial
method within very recent times.
Assuming the public to be able to protect
itself against extortion, there are only a few
men in the community who can advance good
reasons for opposition to the new system.
These are the middlemen, and the small com-
petitor who is unable to meet the larger con-
cern in open market. They are caught
between the upper and the nether millstones.
The former has no just reason for complaint.
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He is not a producer. His work was just so
much economic waste, which is saved by short-
ening the connection between producer and
consumer. The latter is less freely forced to
the wall than is supposed.
THE "TRUST" AND THE "SMALL PRODUCER"
It has appeared in nearly all the investi-
gations recently conducted under the Sherman
anti-trust law that the small competitor still
exists; that as soon as he is forced out or
bought out, another of him appears; that no
pressure is strong enough to eliminate him
altogether, and that the wisest concerns neither
try nor desire to do so. But, in so far as the
small business man is put at a disadvantage,
we must consider his injury, if the principle
of consolidation has come to stay, as only
one more instance of the hardships that always
accompany progress.
As far as we can see now, the greatest num-
ber — whose good must be considered first —
is benefited, just as it has been by the inven-
tion of machinery. Yet every machine dis-
places many men. The printer who set type
by hand has had to find another job since the
linotype came into general use. Almost every
improvement that helps the many brings
injury to individuals here and there. The
building of a railroad puts the owner of the
stage coach out of business. All the trades
have been revolutionized by machinery that
threw men out of work or forced them to learn
a new trade. But the community gains by the
cheapening of processes and of prices, so that
the balance is in favor of the improvements.
We are so alive to the blessings of progress
that we are apt to forget that they always cost
something. But the advantage is great and
sure, and the world has never refused to grasp
it and pay the necessary price.
THE ADVANTAGES OF COMBINATION
On the other side of the balance sheet we
may see what this compensating advantage is.
In every such industrial improvement the
chief beneficiary is the workingman. For his
gain is double; one in wages, and another in
cheaper and more abundant food, shelter, and
clothing. By combining several concerns in
one, many economies are made possible.
Useless officers and unproductive middlemen
are cut off. The systems of purchase and
distribution are simplified. Economies are
effected by the direct purchase of material in
large quantities, or, better still, by acquisition
of ample supplies of raw material. This
enables the United States Steel Corporation
to make high profits on its immense capitaliza-
tion, at prices which give to smaller concerns
only a modest return.
The utilization of waste products is another
economy which now not unfrequently furnishes
the entire dividends of important factories; and
when this has been carried as far and with as
careful direction by practical chemists in the
United States as in -Germany, the results will
be still more marked. The Carnegie Com-
pany built up its great success upon the fact
that it took its iron from its own mines, made
its coke in its own ovens, worked up its mate-
rial in its own furnaces and shipped the fin-
ished product over its own railroad or in its
own vessels. In the great Krupp Iron Works,
of Germany, this system has been in operation
for two generations; and, instead of arousing
public antagonism, the Krupps have the
admiration and good- will of the entire German
nation from the Emperor down.
Now this system obviously enables capital
and labor to produce a better article at a
lower first cost; and that is the rule of indus-
trial progress in this country. Sometimes the
demand for cheapness is too pressing, and
quality deteriorates; but this quickly rights
itself. Sometimes prices are forced up, but
there is always in reserve capital and enter-
prise enough to enter the field when these pass
the boundary of a reasonable profit. It is a
common habit to attribute the rise of prices
during the last ten years entirely to combina-
tions and resulting monopoly.
In some instances these have contributed,
but there are other powerful causes. The
increase in wages and the decrease in hours
of labor, the protective tariff that excludes
foreign competition, and, more effective prob-
ably than all other influences, the enormous
increase in the volume of money and credits
might account for the whole of the increase
in prices.
The total stock of money in the United
States in 1897 was a little over $1,900,000,000;
now it is well in excess of $3,300,000,000, an
increase of over 77 per cent, in eleven years.
In 1896 the total transactions of the New
York Clearing House were $29,350,894,884,
and in 1906, $103,754,100,091. As there
has been a similar expansion of all forms
of credit, prices must have risen from this
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cause alone. The increase 'in the banking
power of the world between 1896 and 1908
was 185 per cent.; that of the United States,
233 per cent. As far as modern industrial
methods are concerned, we may fairly say
that their net result has been to cheapen
production, and thus to place more of the
comforts of life within the reach of the
people.
That the condition of labor has been
improved by the growth of big employing
concerns is patent. Strikes are more infrequent
when a general schedule of wages is fixed
by a central management. This can be
done when the danger of disturbance to
trade through erratic action by some individual
operator is lessened. It is easier for organized
labor to deal with organized capital. Within
the last ten years it has been shown repeatedly
how much more infrequent are ruptures
between large corporations and their employees,
and how much more prompt and satisfactory
the settlement than when disturbance might
arise in any one of a score of centres and be
prolonged through the obstinacy of any one
of a score of managements or labor com-
mittees. The big concern can afford to
purchase and must have the latest and most
improved machinery. It cannot afford to
lay off its men except in extreme cases, because
the loss of a day is a serious item in its business.
HOW THE WORKINGMAN PROFITS
The workingmen, too, may participate in
profits by investing their savings in the shares
of the more solid and prosperous concerns.
The profits of the old corporation went to a
very few persons. It is easy for even a laborer
to know in these days what consolidations
are organized and run on a business basis,
and he has such an opportunity as never before
for safe and lucrative investment that will
enable him to share in the gains of his own
labor and his employer's capital. Of the
nearly $4,000,000,000 of deposits in the
savings banks of this country, the bulk con-
sists of the savings of labor; and this rep-
resents but a portion of its accumulations.
With such resources, the workingmen of the
country might, if they chose, practically
control a large part of its industry within a
few years. From every point of view, the
workingman, who represents the greatest
number whose good a sound industrial order
must seek, appears to be the principal gainer
from the new order in the world of wealth
production.
THE BALANCE OF GOOD AND EVIL
We must beware, however, of rash and
sweeping conclusions in either direction. One
of the great faults of the American public is
its readiness to accept extreme views. The
system of combination in business has been
denounced in unmeasured terms. We have
seen that it does not deserve such abuse.
Neither, probably, is it the universal panacea
that many people think it, or destined to be
final in its present shape. We are, as yet,
no more than on the threshold of the new
era. We must draw proper distinctions.
Already it is clear enough that the greatest
value of industrial combination lies in the
fields calling for immense capital, where big
quantities of raw material must be controlled,
huge plants erected, costly machinery provided,
and a universal demand supplied. The big
instrument is for the big work, such as the
iron and steel trade and its like. In some lines
the old-fashioned small corporations will do the
work better, and they are doing it. A railroad
does not use the same locomotive for its
mountain division and its switching yards.
The theory that business consolidation
in certain employments is a good policy for
everybody appears to be justified by experience.
Against the alleged injury that is intangible
can be set the benefit which figures prove —
.benefit to the workingman, to the consumer,
to the capitalist. Wages are higher, prices
have not risen in proportion, well-chosen
investments are safer, more productive, and
more certain of return. The unsound com-
bination must be weeded out; and time is
doing that. The proper boundaries within
which consolidation is the best working
principle must be ascertained; and time
and experience are doing that. When a
longer trial has taught us more of the new
method, and removed or restrained its abuses,
it will undoubtedly be discovered that much has
been added by it to the resources, the produc-
tive power, and the well-being of man as an in
dividual worker, and still more to the efficiency
of the industrial association of mankind.
THE FIERCE CONTROVERSY OVER RAILROAD.
CONSOLIDATION
Fiercer than the controversy over the rela-
tive merits of competition and consolidation
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
as applied to manufacture has been the
discussion of them as applied to transpor-
tation. Originally the railroad property of
the country consisted of a large number of
small pieces of track, operated by companies
unconnected with and often hostile to one
another. This was natural in a period when
the main purpose of the railroad was still to
serve local needs, to connect with the larger
business centres of the country the territory
immediately served by them.
With the settlement of the West, and
especially with the growth of through traffic,
a neww condition arose. The difficulty of
sending commodities over half a dozen lines,
operated by as many companies, in one quick
and continuous journey became too great for
business to bear. What happened to the
currency of the country happened to its
railroad business. In the period before the
war it was possible for the people to get along
with notes issued by state banks because
business was largely local, travel was limited,
and financial enterprises comparatively small.
Such a system would be intolerable to-day.
And to handle the immense through railroad
business of this country by a host of small
and isolated lines would be just as impracti-
cable as to carry on our commerce with
forty-six different kinds of money. Con-
solidation appeared as naturally and as
inevitably as the triple-expansion engine
displaces that of an earlier type.
Now this was an economic evolution, -
independent of the plans or wishes of men.
It had to be, just as men had to learn the use
of fire if they were to become civilized. But
a vast pother arose over the change; a cloud
of law-making appeared; the comparative
desirability of free competition and general
consolidation in the transportation business
was debated with a sort of frenzy, as if it could
be settled by words; and men are still talking
and legislative bodies still passing new laws
to establish or save competition in railroading,
as if this were something under their control.
The building of parallel lines has been
encouraged and bitter rate wars have been
welcomed as an assurance to the people of
competition for their benefit.
WHAT RAILROAD COMPETITION COSTS THE PUBLIC
As a matter of fact, these things mean the
waste of capital supplied by the people;
mean losses paid by the people. If there
are two lines where one would suffice, the
added burden falls on the public. A railroad
must either earn money to operate it, or
borrow. In either case the people foot the
bills. The fortunes of railroad companies
are determined by the law of the survival of
the fittest. This has already grouped the
railroads of other companies into a few great
systems, operated in harmony with one
another. It has reduced scores of railroad
corporations in New England to two systems,
whose merger is substantially accomplished.
All over the country it has built up big, effi-
cient transportation machines, out of little
scraps of lines that served neither the public
nor their stockholders satisfactorily. And the
interesting fact, as we shall see, is that this
process has been contemporaneous with such
a cheapening of the cost of transportation
to the public as was never known before in
the history of the world, and with a remark-
able development of efficiency in the handling
of an unprecedented volume of business.
The law-making authority has fluttered
about this natural and necessary transforma-
tion much as a fly buzzes about a horse. It
can sting and annoy, but it neither hastens
nor impedes the progress of the horse unless
the flies are thick enough and can bite hard
enough to bring him to a halt in the effort to
drive them away.
THE FUTILITY OF OPPOSING CONSOLIDATION
In the first place, railroad consolidation
was prohibited by law almost everywhere,
because it was considered destructive of
competition. Now, whatever may be argued
about competition in the abstract, it can apply
to transportation only in the large field and
the large sense. To a certain extent, a rail-
road is a natural monopoly. There is room
for only so many in a given territory. Exces-
sive competition may encourage temporary
rate cutting; but no business can ever continue
long on a losing basis. Sooner or later a
restoration of rates, some understanding or
agreement, comes to make existence possible
to the railroads; and then for every line in the
territory in excess of what is required to carry
its business, the public will pay and continue
to pay. Self-preservation, which is a law
stronger than any legislature, has nullified
competition over large areas, manifestly to
the welfare of their people. Consolidation
still proceeds, and the impossibility of arresting
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
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it or doing the business of the country without
it is now admitted even by those who would
protest against removing these inoperative
laws from the statute book.
It also happened, curiously enough, that
while legislative bodies were forbidding con-
solidation through one set of laws, they were
compelling it through another. The assertion
by the state of control of the rate-making
power, in the slightest degree, at once logically
destroyed the possibility of competition. For
universal competition can exist only where
prices are absolutely free to go up and down
without regulation or limit ; until the competing
concerns and the public that they serve meet
on the level of the cheapest service that is
consistent with a reasonable profit, or until
some competitors are forced to the wall.
Competition involves and requires charges
which are at times unreasonable, unequal
and unfair. It thrives on discrimination.
From the moment when these things were
banned by the law, combination was authorized
and forced. Some rulings of the Interstate
Commerce Commission have tended to destroy
the competition naturally existing between
different points on the same system, and throw
all the business to a few big centres. Thus,
were I allowed to compel the making of a
through rate that is less than the sum of the
intermediate local rates, the smaller distributing
points could no longer compete with the few
large ones thus favored.
COMMISSION RULINGS WHICH PROHIBIT
COMPETITION
The principles of rate-making laid down
in the Interstate Commerce law and the
decisions rendered under it absolutely pro-
hibit competition. Ever since they became
effective, railroads have been obliged to come
together, to agree on rates over large areas,
to save expense by making one management
do what it had taken many to do before. As
has been shown, permanent competition in
railroading would be impossible in the nature
of things. But the force which has hastened
consolidation and imposed it upon all rail-
roads that would render good service at a
fair price and also keep out of bankruptcy
is the rate regulation of the last twenty-five
years. To this end the wholly contradictory
ideas of law-makers, supporting competition,
opposing combination, and yet ordering uni-
formity of rates under heavy penalties, have
worked together until the public itself has
accepted the modern method as a necessity.
It will presently recognize it as a good.
For, in addition to the benefits pointed out
as consequences of consolidation in industrial
growth, especially as affecting the workingman,
many others have accrued to the public by
reason of the grouping of railroads into large
systems. In Europe, where the population
is dense, this fact has long been recognized,
and the paralleling of a railroad is forbidden
by law. Good service can be given only
by a road that is making money. The people
are the chief sufferers wherever a railroad
is operated at a loss. Formerly every small
railroad that began nowhere and ended at
the crossroads had its president, vice-president
and full complement of other officers, all
drawing good salaries. For these there is now
one series of officers and one set of salaries.
Economy has marked every stage of the
welding of these little railroads together; but
all other gains are insignificant when com-
pared with the enormous increase of efficiency
in operation and the decrease in cost to the
public.
I will not go into this matter here at length,
since I shall discuss it fully and with the
necessary statistical comparisons in other
articles, and give a measure of the practical
transformation of the transportation business
by consolidation; of how, by this means alone,
the carriers of the country have been enabled
to handle its business and, at the same time,
reduce rates until the freight charges on
American railroads are only a fraction of
those in other countries.
THE INCREASE IN CONSOLIDATION AN©
DECREASE IN RATES
The whole story can be compressed into
a single statement. The last twenty-five
years cover the period of active consolidation
among the railroads of the United States,
until the extent of the groups that will finally
survive and the territory served by each can
be roughly approximated. While this was
going on, the average receipt per passenger
per mile on all the railroads of the United
States dropped from 2.42 cents in 1883 to
2.01 cents in 1906; and the average freight
rate per ton per mile fell nearly 40 per cent.,
from 1.22 cents to .77.
In fact, every legitimate railroad combina-
tion, by which I mean one having a business
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
as distinguished from a stock-jobbing motive,
is intended to produce and does produce
better service and lower rates on the side of the
public, and either larger or more certain profits
or both on the side of the stockholder.
Take the Northern Securities Company for
example. It contemplated no power and had
no power under its charter to operate a rail-
road. The purpose of it was to enable owners
of large amounts of stock in both the Great
Northern and the Northern Pacific companies
to put them into a common holding concern,
where they would be secure against change.
It was a labor-saving device, and a device
contributing to the welfare of the public by
assuring in the management of great properties
that security, harmony and relief from various
forms of waste out of which grow lower rates
just as surely as dividends. The courts asserted
that it had the power to restrain trade; that
the power to do a thing is as objectionable as
the doing of it; that is to say, that since with
your hand you may kill a man, it is against
public policy for a man to have hands.
THE NORTHERN SECURITIES CASE
So the Northern Securities Company went
out of business. What has been the result?
What is the difference? To the owners of
the properties, merely the inconvenience of
holding two certificates of stock of different
colors instead of one, and of keeping track
of two different sets of securities. To the
public, no difference at all except that it has
missed the advantages which the simpler and
more businesslike plan would have secured.
Take the purchase of the Burlington property
by the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific
jointly. What was the purpose and what the
results of that? The public seems to think
that when a consolidation of properties is
effected, all the small stockholders will, by
some mysterious and awful process, be "frozen
out," and that their property will be gobbled
up by a few men. Nobody has lost anything
by this transaction. The Burlington reaches
over its own rails Chicago, Peoria, Rock Island,
Davenport, St. Louis, St. Joseph, Kansas City,
Omaha, Denver, and thus connects with the
main arteries of traffic of the whole country.
All the large slaughter-houses of the country
are located in centres reached by that road.
Four-fifths of the silver and lead smelters in the
United States are situated along it. In coun-
ties reached by the Burlington system in Illi-
nois, 90 per cent, of the manufacturing in the
state is done. Much of its territory offers a
market for the lumber of the Pacific Coast.
To put these markets and products in touch
with one another is worth something.
If hundreds of millions of dollars had been
raised to construct this system, or if another
like it had been built beside it with new capital,
it would have been hailed everywhere with
approval as a means of bringing the Northwest
and Southwest together, of increasing the
business of all the lines concerned and adding
to the prosperity of both sections of the country.
This is what has been brought about without
the waste of capital involved in duplicating
construction; and the service is just as real, the
benefit just as susceptible of proof.
THE KIND OF COMPETITION THAT DOES REMAIN
The question of stock ownership is to be
considered in the light of a great competitive
condition between the territories served by
different large systems. There is competition
between the Northwest and the Southwest.
There is effort to develop each section of the
country, to secure business for and from one
as against another. This form of competition
has not been destroyed, and it is probably the
only kind that is destined to remain fully opera-
t tive in the transportation business. Consolida-
tion is merely an incident on the road to
efficient service. It cannot be against public
interest, for we have already seen the greatest
decline of rates in the period when it was pro-
ceeding most rapidly. It threatens no other
dangers, because railway companies are subject
to supervision and control, now extended to
almost every detail of their operation, by the
public. The amount of their capital is public.
Their rates must be public and uniform.
Reasonableness of rates and service does not
depend upon whether one man owns the capital
stock of a railway or whether it is held by ten or
ten thousand ; by persons or corporations. And
the courts are always open to see that the ob-
ligations of the common carrier are performed.
WHAT THE PUBLIC SHOULD KNOW
The public, on its part, must understand that
it cannot afford to build up a commercial
system based on the supposition that the
transportation business will be done at a loss.
No such arrangement can possibly be perma-
nent. Railroad rates and regulations, when
prescribed by public authority, may easily
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12737
be made such that no financial return for ser-
vice remains after paying expenses. Some-
where before this point is reached the line must
be drawn. Otherwise, if hope of a fair profit
is cut off, private capital will no longer be put
into railroads. Such conditions have been
known in this country recently, and might easily
become fixed. Then, since the traffic of the
country must be carried, the only recourse
would be to have the government do the work.
We can know what this would certainly mean.
The experience of state-owned railroads in
Europe, in Mexico and elsewhere, unable to
sustain themselves without rates much higher
than ours, although labor is far cheaper, our
own experience in the conduct of all large
undertakings by the government, proves that
the work would cost from 50 per cent, more
to several times as much as now. This added
cost, together with the disadvantages of an
inferior service, would fall on the people.
They would have to carry the burden forever.
They should take a second serious thought
before inviting this possibility by measures
so drastic and unfair that capital will no
longer engage in railroad enterprises.
Whatever, then, may be thought of the appli-
cation of the principle of combination in manu-
facturing, its work in connection with trans-
portation appears to have been as benefi-
cent as we have learned all natural laws to 1
be when we have ceased to fear and begun to j
understand them. It is introducing system
into the railroad business of the country. It/
is cutting out waste, driving out speculative
interests, organizing transportation in a national
sense as has never been done before, to the
advantage of everybody concerned. For in
the end the only community of interests that
can exist permanently is the community
between the producer of tonnage and the
carrier. The railroads depend for their
existence upon the products of the land they
serve. The man out on the farm or in the forest
or down in the mine must be able to sell his
product at a profit, or he will cease to labor.
When he has nothing to sell, there will be noth-
ing for the railroad to carry. Individuals come
and go, but the land of the country, its resources
and the railroads will be here permanently;
and they will either prosper or be poor together.
A PLAIN EVIL AMONG CERTAIN CORPORATIONS
There is one plain evil connected with the
creation of certain great corporations that has
not been corrected, although it is easily reached.
The valid objection to many concerns, espec-
ially some of those known as " industrials," is
that they appear to have been created in the
first place not so much for the purpose of
manufacturing any particular commodity as
for selling sheaves of printed securities which
represent nothing more than the good- will and
prospective profits of the promoters. Nearly
all the large concerns engaged in manufacture
or trade that have come to grief owe their
downfall to excessive capitalization. This is
a real menace not only to their successful exist-
ence but to the public, which pays prices
based to some extent on the desire to make
profits on more than the money invested.
If it is the will of the general government
to prevent the growth of such corporations, it
has always seemed to me that a simple remedy
was within its reach. Under the constitu-
tional provision allowing Congress to regulate
commerce between the states, any company
desiring to transact business outside of the
state in which it is incorporated should be
held to a uniform provision of Federal law;
namely, that all should satisfy a commission
that their capital stock was actually paid up in
cash or in property taken at a fair valuation,
just as the capital of a national bank must be
certified to be paid up by the Comptroller of
the Currency.
It is only fair to a dealer in Minnesota or
California or Oregon that if a company claims
to have ten, twenty, or fifty millions of capital,
and wishes to do business in that state, he should
know that its solvency and the honesty of its
alleged capitalization have been passed upon
by a Federal commission. With such a simple
provision of law, the temptation to make
companies for the purpose of selling prospective
profits would be at an end; and, at the same
time, no legitimate business would suffer.
Nor could any number of individuals desirous
of engaging in business as a corporation suffer
any hardship by being obliged to prove that
their capital was as advertised; that they were
not beginning to deal with the public under
false pretenses.
I am convinced that this is the simplest, most
effective and necessary regulation to be applied
to modern business methods. It begins at
the beginning. It not only attacks the practice
by which millions of the people's money have
been coaxed into bad investments, but it also
bears directly upon the main evil attributed to
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
the existence of big corporations. With it they
would lose most of their incentive to any such
wrongdoing as may be within their power.
With it there would be little inducement to
claim exorbitant profits by raising prices,
because the fact could no longer be concealed
by spreading the net return over a fictitious
capitalization.
And of course it follows equally that where
capital has been fully paid in, no interference
should be allowed, because no injustice would
be likely to be done. Yet, although this
remedy has been all the time within easy reach,
although it has been before the public, I myself
calling attention to and recommending it in an
address and in published articles seven years
ago, it is still untried, while legislators go on
debating the impossible suppression of a
natural law.
AN IRRESISTIBLE ECONOMIC LAW
The laws of trade are as certain in their
operation as the laws of gravitation. The
combination of forces to accomplish ends to
which singly they are unequal is one of these
natural laws. You might as well try to set a
broken arm by statute as to change a com-
mercial law by legislative enactment. We have
been as a nation too ready to look to State and
Federal legislation for remedies beyond their
power to give. You may obstruct and delay
for a time, but in the end the inexorable law
of experience and the survival of the fittest
will prevail. That is a law of universal opera-
tion, and in its working it appears to be eternal.
The wise course for us is to try all things, to
keep that which is good, to work with intelli-
gence and by the light of past experience
toward that which is better, and thus to sift
methods and secure in the end results beneficial
to every individual, to every interest, to national
development and prosperity.
THE SELF-DESTRUCTION OF EVIL
COMBINATIONS
Such combinations as are evil, and some
there are, will be found self-destroying. The
large material view of things, as well as the
moral, shows that the affairs of men are sub-
ject to a moral order. That which is wrong
cannot continue indefinitely. Every mistake
carries within it the seed of failure. Every
device of man is tried by final facts; and not
one which is not fitted to promote his progress
and to assist in the betterment of human con-
ditions and the advance of human societies
will survive. All history shows this. There-
fore, in so far as the principle of collective
effort through great corporations is wholly
self-seeking, aims at unjust ends or offends the
law of national growth, it will perish.
Especially in a country of free institutions
and among a people accustomed to act indepen-
dently it is impossible to conceive of any last-
ing triumph of a bad method. The people
of this country could to-morrow, if they saw
fit, and if they thought that the emergency
called for measures so radical, starve any great
industrial concern by refusing for the time to
do business with it. It is always possible, how-
ever inconvenient or unlikely, for mankind
in a crisis to go back for a time to the mode of
life in which needs were simple and could
be satisfied, near at hand. A month of starva-
tion would bring any big business to terms.
THE TEACHING OF THE PAST
But no such extreme course will ever be
necessary. For already a survey of the last
quarter of a century will show how rapidly
industry is conforming itself to the law of
combination, how excellent is the result in
abundance of product, a raising of the general
standard of comfort, improvement in the con-
dition of working people and greater steadiness
of markets and prices of both raw materials
and finished products. These advantages the
world will not part with. The undesirable
consequences of the new method have already
been guarded against to a great extent; and
the remainder will either be remedied in like
manner or cast off just as the human system
rejects the poisons and retains the nourish-
ment generated from food by the bodily
processes.
The principle of consolidation in business
within proper limitations and safe-guards
is a permanent addition to the forward-
moving forces of the world. We shall no
more abandon it, we could no more live our
lives now without it, than we could consent
to dissolve our governments, forget all our
complex social relationships and return to
the simple but barren life of isolation bought
by hardship and a stunted existence supported
by the chase.
[The next article in Mr. HilVs series will discuss Inland Waterway traffic.]
Google
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The World's Work
.WALTER H. PAGE, Editor
CONTENTS FOR APRIL, 1910
MR. DANIEL H. BURNHAM Frontispiece
THE MARCH OF EVENTS— An Editorial Interpretation -
(With full-page portraits of Mr. Charles E. Merriam, President Woodrow Wilson, Dr. Edward L. Trudeau, Dr. J.
W. Robertson, Mr. J. J. Carty, ex-Senator James Gordon, Mr. James Carleton Young, Mr. Elihu Vedder; Three
Literary Sons of the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Senate Committee to Investigate the High Prices of F008; the
Saint Gaudens Memorial to Phillips Brooks; Sinking a Tunnel under the Detroit River; and "the Highland Fling"
as an Exercise for Efficiency.)
LET US STOP WASTE SWIFT AND FINAL JUSTICE
THE OUTLOOK FOR THE NEXT CONGRESS POLITICS WITHOUT THE POLITICIAN
JXS^^^JS^SiVrT1?^,^^ ,^.,w.„t r, THE MORAL STANDARDS OF TWO PERIODS
WTfflA^TOSp^ A TASK FOR THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE
php "PHDir u a dbp >» rnvTYviTpn PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON OF PRINCETON
kmW^VWlSl^^lOS 2^^^2HJ££F^\J£E£ avn TOW crrxr
IS BUSINESSLIKE GOVERNMENT POSSIBLE? EFFORTS TO HARNESS THE WAVES AND THE SUN
A KINDLY PRESENCE IN A COLD WORLD RURAL HEALTH BY COOPERATIVE WORK
THE RED FLAG OF WARNING PRAISE AND BLAME AND ERRORS
HOW TO BECOME A WRITER Helen Keller 12765
A LITTLE DEAL IN REAL-ESTATE ...... 12766
INSURING YOUR LIFE INSURANCE 12768
THE HIGH COST OF LIVING TO CONTINUE Arthur W. Page 12770
THE WAY TO HEALTH
I. Getting Well at Home - - - By One Getting Well 12773
II. Self-Cure with Fresh Cream - - - Dr. B. J. Kendall 12774
THE TELEPHONE AS IT IS TO-DAY - - Herbert N. Casson 12775
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS (Illustrated)
VI. The Future of Our Waterways - - - James J. Hill 12779
CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM (Illustrated)
William Bayard Hale 12792
THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE? - - William Bayard Hale 12805
HOW IMMIGRANTS SOLVE THE COST OF LIVING
Lewis E. MacBrayne 12813
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER— Concluded
Paris and Rome (Illustrated) ----- Elihu Vedder 12815
THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE (Illustrated)
Matthew A. Henson 12825
A LIBRARY OF AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS (Illustrated)
Herbert Randolph Galt 12838
"TRADING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT" - - Clifford Howard 12846
TERMS: $3.00 a year; single copies, 25 cents. For Foreign Postage add $1.28; Canada, 60 cents.
Published monthly. Copyright, 1910, by Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved. Entered at the Post-office at New York, N. Y., as second-class mail matter.
Country Life in America
tUBLEDA
F. N. Dodbleday, President h^S^otston* ^ Vice-PrcsWeilt8 H- w- Lanier, Secretary
The Garden Magazine-Farming
NEW YORK
is., .£££££,««»* DOUBLEDAY, PAGE fr COMPANY, .u^Kim
S. A. Eveiitt Treasun
I r\r\rslf>
urer
CSlt
MR. DANIEL H. BURNHAM
WHO WAS CHIEF ARCHITECT OF THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, AND IS NOW CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL
COMMISSION FOR BEAUTIFYING WASHINGTON, AND ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF A GREAT "PLAN OF CHICAGO"
. . [S*t" Chicago— its StruggU and its Dnam," f*ft IJ79*l
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Worlds Work
APRIL, 1910
Volume XIX
Number 6
Zbe fl>arcb of Events
THE increased cost of food reminds us,
among other things, that we have
not so much for every person to eat
as we used to have. Facts like this turn our
minds toward individual economics. The
wasteful use of our forests and our coal and
such things has begun to come home to us —
most of all, the wasteful use of our soil; and
an awakening national conscience has put us
on the way toward frugality in large ways.
These experiences come naturally after a long
period of reckless exploitation, after a genera-
tion of gigantic organization, after our frontier
has disappeared, and after the practical
exhaustion of our free land.
May it not be that, by reason of these
experiences, we are come to a time when we
may hope gradually to change our mood and
our methods? May we not become individ-
ually more frugal, less reckless in expenditure,
more methodical in management, more careful
in investment? One could find many facts
to prove that such a change is beginning to
take place in American character.
Of course no such change can come suddenly.
Old habits are not easily nor quickly thrown
off. In many times and places, in fact, they
assert themselves with the greater energy
because of a little repression. After a "land
boom" has been discouraged a long enough
time in any community, the community for
that very reason gets ripe for another "land
boom," and again loses its standard of values
and its money. After a period of forced
economy, too, such as followed the panic of
two years or more ago, the latural man has a
Copyright. 1910, by Doubteday,
tendency to get the better of the prudent man
and again to make excursions into unwarranted
extravagances.
Still the larger, general, and more or less
steady tendency in American life is toward
frugality, prudent economy, and care in
management. Our educational work reflects
and helps forward this tendency. Women
are now taught scientific management of
household work, and scientific management
is the basis of all frugality. The demand for
instruction in orderly business methods means
frugality. Better use of the soil is the cry and
the effort of all rural teaching; and that is
perhaps the best road of all to sensible fru-
gality. And the general diffused prosperity
of the people — for more of our people are
well-to-do than ever before — helps the same
tendency. A poor man can't easily be prudent
and frugal and careful in management. Well-
ordered habits of life require at least some
remove from a hand-to-mouth existence.
But in personal economy poor men and rich
alike must begin by saving.
As Mr. MacBrayne sets forth in his article
in this number, the frugal habits of the alien
put our native habits to shame. The superi-
ority of the foreigner in this respect is just
this — that he puts something away no matter
how small his income. That enables even a
poor man to make a start toward indepen-
dence. But the main matter is to come into
a state of mind that appreciates and cultivates
constructive economies.
There could be no better national aim for
a generation or two than "Let us stop waste."
Page & Co. All rights reserved.
Google
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THE PHILLIPS BROOKS MEMORIAL, BY AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS
WHICH WAS RECENTLY UNVEILED AT TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON. THE BRONZE MEMORIAL IS A POSTHU-
MOUS WORK BY SAINT -GAUD ENS ; THE GRANITE CANOPY WAS DFSIONED BY THE LATE CHARLES F. MCKTM
Copyright 1907 and 1908 by A. H. Saint-Gauden*. I-r..m a Copley print copyright 1910 by Curtis A: Cameron. Inc.
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MR. CHARLES E. MERRIAM
PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO AND CITY ALDERMAN, NOW HEADING AN INVES-
TIGATING COMMISSION WHICH HAS UNEARTHED GROSS FRAUDS IN THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
[See "Chicago— its Struggle and its Dre.nu." pn^e tr?<p\
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DR. EDWARD L. TRUDKAU
OF SARANAC LAKE, NT. Y., WHO RECENTLY CELEBRATED THK TWKNTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS WORK IN THE
HEALING OF TUBERCULOSIS VICTIMS, AND "WHOSE LIFE HAS BEEN ONE LONG CONSECRATION TO HIS FELLOW-MEN"
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ekhMUhM UuuUKoU WILSON. Of- PR IXC ETON" UNIVERSITY
"a man who sees clearly the complex task of training youth in a democracy and sees it
whole, and who has the courage to work by a well-matured philosophy toward large ends"
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HON. JAMES GORDON
RF.CENTLY UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM MISSISSIPPI FOR AN UNEXPIRED TERM OF FIFTY DAYS, WHO BY HIS
K1'NpLy WAYS BROUGHT "THE MOST AUGUST LEGISLATIVE BODY IN THE WORLD" UP INTO A HUMAN MOOD
\Stt "A Kindly Prtxtnct in a Cold World," /aft r*K9\
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MR. J. J. CARTY
Photograph by Pirle McDonald
THE FOREMOST TELEPHONE ENGINEER IN THE WORLD, TO WHOM ARE DUE MANY OF THE
SCIENTIFIC CONQUESTS THAT HAVE MARKED THE ADVANCE IN LONG-DISTANCE CONVERSATION
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PROF. J. W. ROBERTSON
OF OTTAWA, CANADA'S FIRST COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE AND DAIRYING, WHO
IS NOW THE WORKING HEAD OF THE CANADIAN COMMISSION ON CONSERVATION
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Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson Father Hugh Robert Benson Mr. Edward Frederic Benson
THREE LITERARY SONS OF AN ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
[See "An Archbishops Literary Sons," fagt JZflj]
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MR. JAMES CARLETON YOUNG
0j- MINNEAPOLIS, WHO HAS DEVOTED HIS FORTUNE AND HIS LIFETIME TO THE FORMATION OF A
xjI4lQTJE LIBRARY OF MODERN BOOKS, EACH OF WHICH CONTAINS AN INSCRIPTION BY ITS AUTHOR
[See "A library of Axlografhtd Books." fiage fJ&)8\
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I
SINKING A TUNNEL TO THE BOTTOM OF A RIVER
Copyright, Detroit Pub. Co.
TO CARRY THE MICHIGAN CENTRAL RAILROAD TRACKS FROM DETROIT TO WINDSOR, CANADA, UNDER THE DETROIT RIVER,
AND TTTEREBY GET RID OF THE DELAY IN FERRYING THE TRAINS ACROSS. THE TUNNEL WAS BUILT IN SKCTIONS,
WHICH WERE FLOATED OUT INTO THE RIVER AND LOWERED INTO PLACE — AN INTERESTING MECHANICAL 1 EAT
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MR. ELIHU VEDDER
WHOSE i?^.,
FORTHCOMING 'DIGRESSIONS" WILL MAKE A BOOK TO ENLIVEN DULL HOURS
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CORPORATION REGULATION INEVITABLE
"755
THE OUTLOOK FOR THE NEXT CONGRESS
THE Republicans have a majority of 47
in the House of Representatives. A
new House will be elected this autumn. At
the last election 29 districts were so close that
20 Republicans and 9 Democrats went in by
majorities of less than 1,000. That is to say,
there are more Republican seats near the
danger-line than there are Democratic seats.
A change of 500 votes in each of twenty
close districts would reduce the Republican
majority in Congress to seven. There are
four more districts which at the last election
chose Republicans by less than 1,300 majority.
A change in the political faith of 12,600 voters,
provided they resided in the necessary twenty-
four close districts, would give the House of
Representatives to the Democrats. This
assumes that the Democrats lose no seat
It is probable, of course, that the Democrats
will lose some seats. But they have the better
of the starting odds.
The wide dissatisfaction with the Payne
tariff and with Aldrichism and Cannonism in-
dicates that, were an election to be held to-day,
many Republican Representatives — not only
in the close districts but in former strongholds
of the party — would meet defeat.
II
The Republican majority in the Senate is 26.
The terms of 24 Republican Senators expire
March 4, 191 1, but the Republican majority
is safe. There is, however, an interesting
possibility. The progressive Republicans in
the Senate may be so strong that, with an
increased Democratic membership (which is
likely) and a Democratic House (which is very
possible), an effort to dethrone the Aldrich
organization and revise the tariff again might
hope to be successf ul.
There are seven Insurgents among the
Republican Senators of the Sixty-first Congress.
Three of them have to seek re-election; two
will certainly get it If Senator Beveridge
does not return, it will be because he is super-
seded by a Democrat. Progressive Republi-
cans hope to elect successors to Burrows of
Michigan and Piles of Washington. Demo-
crats believe that they will defeat Dick of
Ohio, Burkett of Nebraska, McCumber of
North Dakota, and Warner of Missouri, and
convert Jones of Washington and Page of
Vermont. These hopes fulfilled would reduce
the Aldrich men in the Senate to 46, and allow
the Insurgents and Democrats in alliance to
tie them.
These hopes are probably visionary. It is
not, however, idle to predict that this fall's
election may make so clear the estimate in
which the country holds the present tariff
settlement, that the Aldrich domination will
meet its doom.
WHAT "GANNONISM" IS
MR. HALE'S article, "The Speaker or the
People?" in this magazine was read
in proof, with the request for comments and
corrections, by several members of Congress
of different groups, and by other well-informed
persons. All these gentlemen declared it
correct, except one, who maintains that it is
wholly wrong, but he refused to permit the
publication of his comment. His idea is that
the method of procedure in the House is a thing
that has been evolved by the experience of
more than a century, and that it is excellent
and necessary.
As an almost perfect piece of mechanism
to prevent the House from being a deliberative
body — yes. For in no other legislature out-
side of Turkey and Russia has one man so
much power as in our House. By the Com-
mittee on Rules, three men (including the
Speaker, and the others appointed by him)
can and do prevent the consideration of any
legislation that they disapprove of. This is
the main point Incidentally the personality
of the present Speaker and the old-time school
of politics in which he was trained tend to
tighten this methodical tyranny to the utmost
The rules must be and will be changed.
"Cannonism," against which there is now a
strong and hopeful revolt, means the continua-
tion of the present method.
CORPORATION REGULATION INEVITABLE
IT WILL come to pass in some way at some
time that the big corporations, perhaps
all corporations, will be held accountable to
the National Government. Since the state
governments have failed to hold them to
account, and since uniform state corporation
laws are unlikely ever to be passed, the National
Government is the only power left to regulate
these powerful artificial entities. State laws
permit and even encourage their creation, but
state laws have not and will not sufficiently
hold them to fair dealing.
Two things have been demonstrated by the
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12756
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
rapid growth of corporations — their necessity
and their need of proper governmental super-
vision. The corporation — even the smatil
private corporation — is such a convenience
that we are not going, to give it up; and for
large undertakings and enterprises there is no
other adequate machinery. And the present
popular demand for stricter supervision is not
a passing mood. It is a permanent con-
viction. If the people have made up their
minds to anything it is that competition shall
not be throttled, and that corporations which
put their securities on the market shall not be
conducted secretly. The conviction has sunk
deep that these things are necessary for what
we call "liberty" — that is, for a fair deal, and
for ordinary safety in the commercial world.
II
But the devising of any proper form of
Federal regulation is a very difficult and slow
task. The history of the Interstate Commerce
Law proves this as regards railroads, and the
history of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law proves
it as regards other kinds of corporations. We
bungle along. We make absurd statutes.
We wrangle over amendments to them. We
make them better, we make them worse.
The Supreme Court confirms this law or that,
or this amendment or that, and declares another
law or another amendment unconstitutional.
And so we go zigzag. A President proposes
a new set of laws or amendments. Congress
acts, or refuses to act, or twists the President's
recommendations out of recognizable shape.
And then we wrangle about the latest phase of
the subject in the newspapers and on the stump.
But, all the while, any man who can discern
the direction of the people's deliberate thought
and our sure if slow approach toward
democracy in industry knows that this
agitation will not cease till its purpose is
accomplished.
Such a man may be made weary by the
. haggling in Congress, by the insincerity and the
indirection of leaders and of parties, and by
the general dilly-dallying, but he will not
become impatient. We must go through
a long series of experiments before we learn
how to do so complex a task. In the long run,
it matters little to this large, long-time move-
ment what any particular Congress does or
fails to do, or whether any particular President
hits on the best plan or can carry his plan
through. But what progress is made may
make a great difference to any particular
President or to any particular Congress; for
they will be pretty sure to suffer at the next
election if the people doubt their sincerity.
The great task will get itself done under some
leadership at some time by some party.
Ill
One dirty low trick to set back this task
is the (at present) apparent unwillingness of
Congress to give force to an act that it passed
during the extra session last year. The
one per cent, corporation-tax was enacted
with the requirement that the reports of
corporations should be open to the public
for inspection. Everybody supposed that this
publicity clause would go into effect But
it has turned out that a specific appropriation
is necessary to put it into effect — of $50,000
a year for clerical labor. And now the
disposition is to defeat this publicity clause by
a trick — the* trick of withholding such an
appropriation.
If this publicity clause was a good clause
when it was passed last year, it is a good clause
now. But many corporations have had time
and a chance to object to it; and Congress
seems likely to starve its own offspring.
Of course, there is a chance that the Supreme
Court — even before this paragraph is read in
type — may declare the whole act of imposing
a corporation tax unconstitutional; and in
this event we shall have to try regulation by
some other statute.
But the reopening of the whole subject has
this plain meaning for the moment: the
reactionary leaders in Congress were forced
to pass the Corporation-Tax Act in order to
head off an Income-Tax Act and to bring the
President to sign the Payne Tariff Bill. The
President then had the cold end of the poker.
Now the Payne Tariff Act is signed the
Income-Tax amendment to the Constitution
is not likely to be ratified at any early time, and
the Reactionaries say to the President: "Now
you can't help yourself, and we'll starve to
death your corporation-tax bantling; and
what are you going to do about it?" It is
a piece of the bullying that they do to Mr,
Taf t and to the people — thoroughly charac-
teristic and thoroughly cynical.
IV
Of course there is much to say against
forcing small corporations — especially the
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THE SMALL CHANCE FOR THE INCOME-TAX
1*757
so-called private corporations — to make their
business public. But the same reasons existed
last year. And it is only fair to recall what a
corporation is. It is an artificial entity which
may do business without the same personal
responsibility for debt that the men who own
it would have if they did business individually,
or as a copartnership. In other words, the
State grants a corporation a certain kind of
immunity that it does not grant individuals.
On what theory and by what justification?
Men who incorporate their business are surely
under a moral obligktion not to use their
corporate privileges to escape liability or to
deceive the public; and the best safeguard
that the public can have against such abuses
is publicity. TJiere is a sound moral reason,
therefore, for publicity about corporations,
especially about corporations that offer their
securities to the public.
Any publicity law will work harm to some
honest men and to more dishonest men.
The honest men's chance of escape, whose
business will really be hurt by publicity, is to
give up the corporate form and to organize
copartnerships. The convenience and the
partial immunity from liability for debts
have brought into being an abnormal and
unnecessary number of private corporations,
many of which have no sufficiently good reason
for a corporate existence. If the number of these
were lessened business would suffer no harm.
If the public grants special privileges or
immunities or advantages to corporations, it
has the right and even the duty to hold them,
for that reason, to a strict accountability;
and there is no form of accountability more
wholesome than a fairly administered publicity.
In general, then, whatever may be the fate
of the present Corporation-Tax Law, or of its
publicity clause, the central principle of both
will be put into some statute that is con-
stitutional and that cannot be starved out of
operation by reactionary members of Congress.
THE SMALL CHANCE FOR THE INCOME-TAX
IT IS too early to say with any positiveness
that the amendment to the Constitution
allowing the collection of a national income-
tax will or will not become the Sixteenth
Amendment; but a survey of the situation
leaves grave doubts about the success of the
proposal.
The Governors of New Jersey, Ohio,
Virginia, and a few other influential states have
spoken in favor of the new form of taxation;
and/Governor Hughes of New York has spoken
plaiply against it. The legislatures dally with
thfe ! subject in a manner that shows clearly
enough the lack of systematic knowledge of
the effects of such taxation.
twelve states refuse to ratify the plan,
"" fail. At the time this is written, eleven
practically refused, and five others seem
to refuse. New York, Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine,
Colorado, and West Virginia seem to be com-
qiitted against it.
• It will be noted at once that the legislatures
Of the capitalistic states have been the first
Uo cast votes in the negative. This is natural
enough. These are the states where large
personal incomes prevail, based on forms of
property that permit existence without great
taxation. An income-tax — the most direct
and infallible of all taxes — would fall heavily
upon the wealthy citizens of the wealthy East
Therefore the East is against it
II
Meantime the iniquities of the "personal-
property tax," once so universal a basis of all
local taxation, are coming to be recognized.
Nearly a dozen of the Eastern States and the
Provinces of Canada also are moving away
from the time-honored standard.
For it has come to be recognized that, as
wealth has taken on more intangible forms,
the wealthy have succeeded more and more
in dodging the personal taxes. It is easy to
assess a personal-property tax on a farmer,
whose property is all perfectly visible, or on a
small trader, whose wealth is very tangible and
all in one place; but, when a man has bonds
and stocks piled up in safety-vaults in three
states, it is impossible to do more than take
his word for it.
The smaller people know that they are
paying more than their share of the burden
under the personal-property form of taxation
— and the smaller people are learning to talk
and legislate. A little Quebec farmer with a
real grievance can make as much noise as a
steel magnate with an evil conscience.
Out of the general feeling of unrest over
forms of taxation we are almost certain,
sooner or later, to evolve something better
than the present hodge-podge of special favor,
uneven burden, wicked injustice, and blind
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"758
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
grabbing. We have been so rich that we didn't
care; but the awakening conscience of the
people as a nation is forcing us, money-bags
and all, toward civilized standards in this as
in every other matter that touches national life,
THE "PORK BARREL" CONTINUED
THE Rivers and Harbors Bill, to appro-
priate $42,000,000, is a continuation of the
old "pork barrel" system of wasting money.
This system is to equalize, as far as may be,
the distribution of piece-work and patch-work,
some good, much bad, a part of it shameful —
without any comprehensive plan.
The public would cheerfully pay $42,000,000
toward carrying out a well-laid general plan
to improve rivers and canals for transportation,
and for the control and conservation of water.
But there is no public demand for an oppor-
tunity to pay $42,000,000 or any part of it
upon many miscellaneous projects which
give no aid. to the transportation system of
the country.
For an indefinite time appropriations have
been made, money has poured into certain
districts from the Federal treasury, local
representatives have won praise for "getting
things," dams and locks of good construction
have been built by the army engineers — and
the railroads continue to carry the freight.
Single-track, light-rail roads of thirty years ago,
with inferior equipment, began to take the
freight from the rivers and canals which had
enjoyed it for many years. Since that time
the roads have constantly been improved.
But our waterways, in spite of the millions
spent upon their "improvement," are relatively
less efficient than ever. Mr. James J. Hill
explains it in this number of The World's
Work, and the two-volume report of the
Commissioner of Corporations on Transporta-
tion by Water in the United States is full
of statistics which show the failure of our
past river and canal policy. Even the traffic
on our greatest waterway, the Mississippi,
continues to decline. Yet this year's bill calls
for the improvement of the Missouri 391 miles
from Kansas City to its mouth.
If a permanent Waterway Service, such as
has been suggested by Senator Newlands,
the father of the Reclamation Act, and such
as is outlined by Mr. Hill, could be formed,
we should go about this great task intelligently.
Under the present system we go about it only
expensively.
A NEW CHAPTER IN IMMIGRATION
PROVIDENCE, Incorporated" is the new
nickname of Canada's great railroad.
A Danish immigrant agent of the road invented
the phrase and it ought to stick. The occasion
was the inauguration of a new method of
bringing farmers into the Northwest, and the
method itself is so radical that it deserves some
free advertising.
The road owns much land. It needs many
thousands of farmers. It wants the best men.
It is not satisfied with the man who lands at
Ellis Island with $23 in his pocket It goes
after the very best class of farmers in
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the mid-
Continental areas. Its agents, who swarm
everywhere, found much trouble in persuading
satisfied and prosperous farmers on well-
tilled farms to leave those farms and take to
the back plains, with the hardships of the
pioneer's life before them. That problem
was put before the Canadian Pacific officials.
They set to work to solve it.
So, to-day, pioneering is going out of fashion.
Instead of selling raw land to raw settlers, the
railroad itself has gone into the pioneeringbusi-
ness. It sells the land, builds the house and
the barn, breaks the fields, plants the first crop,
puts all the necessary tools under cover on the
farm — and hands over the farm ready-made.
The new settler comes from a finished farm to
a finished farm.
Two years ago this was an experiment; now
it is a policy. As a result, the cream of the
industrial farmers of central Europe and of
our own Middle West is drifting into Canada
by trainloads.
Again, while our own Government went
slowly at the task of reclaiming arid lands in
the West, this railroad went into the irrigation
business itself. It could not afford to wait
for Government methods or for the wasteful
selections of private capital. Five years ago
the financial papers announced that the rail-
road was going to reclaim some millions of
acres of land in the Bow River country, Alberta.
Now, a million acres are watered, sold to
farmers — settled. The railroad's ditch-dig-
gers are moving on to the second million.
No ordinary farmer is wanted on these new
acres. The railroad's agents are instructed
to call for and demand the best irrigation
farmers on earth to till these fields. A scien-
tific farming expert is travelling through
selected areas of Europe, lecturing on irriga-
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A KINDLY PRESENCE IN A COLD WORLD
"759
tion farming in Alberta. His lectures draw
the very best of the farming experts of the old
hard-working nations — and the promises that
he makes are backed by a guaranty that
never has failed, the word of a railroad that
does not lie.
In the face of such efforts, directed by the
wisest brains in the pioneering business, free
from every sort of Government trammel,
liberal beyond the experience of the past, is it
any wonder that more than 80,000 of the best
farmers in the United States last year went into
Western Canada, carrying with them probably
more than $100,000,000? The settlers on the
new farms that are sold ready-made need nearly
$2,000 each to start with — and the figure is
put high to be sure of getting the best men.
What machinery have the railroads of this
country to compare with methods like these?
When the Grand Trunk Pacific opens up, it
will undoubtedly follow the same methods.
It takes no prophet to see, in the regions settled
under these principles, the nucleus of the most
efficient agricultural nation in the history of
the world.
IS BUSINESSLIKE GOVERNMENT POSSIBLE?
SENATOR ALDRICH has a plan that,
if successfully carried out, will bring him
the grateful appreciation of a long-burdened
people. It is to give to a Business-Methods
Commission the task of finding practical ways
of reducing the cost of the National Govern-
ment. He said in the Senate:
"It I were a business man, and could be per-
mitted to do it, I would undertake to run this
Government for $300,000,000 a year less than it
is now run for."
That is a severer indictment than any critic
of Government methods has hitherto made;
but those who know most about the subject
will be slowest to call it an unjust criticism.
The President has this subject much on his
mind, and he is making efforts to reduce the
recommendations for appropriations to the
executive departments to the orderliness of a
budget.
The subject ought to be taken up thoroughly
by some body of men with authority to go
through the whole range of the public service
as business engineers, as accountants are
periodically engaged to go through private or
corporate business concerns. If the President
or Senator Aldrich can bring this about, a
practical way might be opened to most of the
reforms that are now proposed from merely
doctrinal or party points-of-view. The con-
duct of the Government is, after all, the conduct
of a vast business machine. But it is con-
ducted in most unbusinesslike ways.
Take, as one example of many, the Post-
Ofiice Department. The proposal to increase
the postage on magazines has brought out
facts that would stagger any business man,
for any private business conducted as the
Post Office Department is would argue
idiocy as well as bring ruin. And the Post-
master-General's proposal to remedy the
matter is as unbusinesslike as any evil that
now exists. He would simply add another
stratum of wrong method to the deep series of
wrong methods that have accumulated there.
Senator Carter, on the other hand, has*
introduced a bill that goes to the bottom of the
# matter and is constructive. It provides for
a permanent Director of Posts who shall be
freed from political influence, and for a modern
and effective system of book-keeping in the
department, which has been sorely needed for
fifty years and more, and for a systematic and
efficient management of this great business.
This recommendation was made several
years ago after a thorough investigation which
Congress ordered. But there the subject was
dropped. If the public would take the trouble
to reinforce Senator Carter's plea with letters,
and with ai\ awakened opinion and discussion,
it would do a definite, constructive service.
A KINDLY PRESENCE IN A COLD WORLD
MR. HEYBURN, of Idaho, a little while
ago "waved the bloody shirt" in the
Senate. He found this ancient pastime much
out of date. Nobody applauded, and not a
Senator but himself voted for the resolution
to which he spoke.
A little later Senator Gordon, who served
a two-months' appointment from Mississippi,
delivered a long farewell address to the Senate,
in prose and rhyme, apropos of nothing but
his good feeling toward his fellows and toward
the whole Union, and his old-fashioned
appreciation of the great honor and high
privilege of serving in the Senate even for
so brief a time. His speech was the homely,
rustic, genuine expression of right feeling; and
it was one of the events of the session — a
touch of kindly human nature in the Senate!
Senator Gordon subsequently invited the
President and the Cabinet and his associates
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12760
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
to a theatre party, and most of them accepted
his invitation; and the kindly, good old
gentleman returned to Mississippi" and private
life, having done one of the most genuine bits
of service to political society at the Capital that
it has received for many a day. Even Senators
become human under a sufficiently human
touch.
THE RED FLAG OF WARNING
THIS is clipped from a New York news-
paper, published the day after the failure
of Searing & Co., a Wall Street banking-
house which collapsed late in February:
"Early in the day the uptown branches of the
firm were shut up, and the small depositors who
had been confidently intrusting their savings to
the branches at 4^ per cent, interest, impressed by
the similarity of the office lay-out to a regular bank
and the large signs bearing the firm's Wall Street
address, began to pour into the offices of counsel for *
the receiver before noon. James, Schell & Elkus,
counsel for the receiver, referred all callers to
McLaughlin, Russell, Coe & Sprague, across the
street, counsel for the petitioning creditors. Lind-
say Russell of that firm is the receiver of Ennis &
Stoppani, and has had a lot of experience handling
desperate small creditors, but he was unnerved
yesterday by the throng of poor people who
besieged him with pleas to get them back at least
some of their savings.
"When he came out to talk to the reporters late
in the afternoon there was a little old woman in
black weeping in the chair behind Kim, who had
only a week ago put $1,000 of borrowed money
in one of the Searing "banks." Her husband
died in January, leaving her penniless, and she
had borrowed the money from friends and relatives
to start a little notion shop. She was just about
to open up when the smash came.
"Another of Mr. Russell's visitors was a grocer
in the neighborhood of the Harlem branch. He
began depositing with the 2,611 Eighth Avenue
office when it opened two years ago, and as the
4i per cent, was paid regularly he finally put into
the concern his savings of fifteen years as a grocery
clerk, amounting to $765. He had been planning
to start a little business of his own this spring, and
only on Thursday deposited a week's pay of $20,
leaving himself without a cent of cash. He said
yesterday that he had dozens of customers in the
store, all poor people, whom he had persuaded to
put money with Searing & Co., and didn't know
how he was going to face them."
It points the truth so often written in these
pages. There is no single institution in the
land that is a more vital and necessary part
of the growth of the nation than the savings-
bank. The small investor or depositor who
passes by the well-founded, carefully restricted,
conservatively managed savings-bank in the
mad effort to gain five or ten dollars a year
extra revenue out of his $1,000 deposits runs a
risk of losing all.
Almost at the same moment, accounts came
from England of a remarkable piece of folly.
England goes mad financially every now and
again. This time it is rubber-plantation
shares. Millions upon millions of dollars'
worth of such stocks are now bought by the
ignorant and the poor of that nation at prices
that are perfectly ridiculous. A few gather
quick fortunes as the wheel turns. The
many pay the bills. The crash is inevitable
— just as it was in the Kaffir Boom and in our
own little mining-stock boom of less than ten
years ago.
Every generation, every year, every day of
every year supplies its large crop of easy
victims.
SWIFT A1TD FINAL JUSTICE
A SUMMARY, kindly supplied to The
World's Work from an official source,
of the record made by the Municipal Court of
~~iicago during the three years of its existence
so remarkable that attention deserves again
to be called to this extraordinary bench.
In the years 1907, 1908, and 1909, this court
ied 197,347 criminal and quasi-criminal
Eighty per cent, of these cases were
»posed of within twenty-four hours of the
mbment of arrest. Ninety-five per cent, of
thpse cases were finally disposed of within
days of arrest. Out of the whole number,
,347 cases, only sixty-eight cases went up
appeal or writ of error, and of the sixty-eight
it went up only thirty-one cases were
'ersed.
Here is an illustration of speed, certainty,
ajid finality in the administration of criminal
jpstice in a great city which ought to shame the
loitering methods of the vast majority of
American courts, dragging months and years
behind their dockets.
\ POLITICS WITHOUT THE POLITICIAN
\
CAN you name the State Auditor you voted
for at the last election, or the coroner,
or the county clerk, or your State Representa-
tive? Did you really have a choice among the
candidates for these and the dozens of other
offices you think you helped to fill? Can you
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THE MORAL STANDARDS OF TWO PERIODS
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assert that you knew anything concerning the
characters of half the candidates on the long
ballots you have been marking? A voter who
participates in the full four-year cycle of
elections, national, state, county, city, town-
ship, has to record his choice for about
five hundred offices, for each of which there
may be an indefinite number of candidates.
Can any elector rationally be expected to
have the wide personal information which
he should have to vote in this wholesale
fashion?
It is a just criticism of the republican
system that it loads the citizen with elec-
toral responsibilities for which he is not
and cannot be competent. The average
citizen, as a rule, knows little or noth-
ing about the minor offices, the candidates
for them, the qualifications required, the
lengths of the terms, and the recurrence
of elections.
Somebody does know, however. The citizen
being too busy with his private affairs to keep
himself informed on these multitudinous public
matters, there has grown up a profession which
manages his voting for him. Necessity has
created the politician — the specialist in
the election business.
The profession of the politician is a thor-
oughly honorable and useful one. In Chicago
and a few other cities, organizations like the
Municipal Voters' League maintain honest
election specialists, paying them to place their
knowledge and skill at the service of the
public.
Generally, however, the professional poli-
tician is in business for himself. He trades
in the people's ignorance and fills at least the
minor offices with men who will serve his own
interests.
A new idea is abroad, offering to remedy
many of the ills of rule by politicians. It
advises: Shorten the ballot; take the minor
offices off the voting-papers. The citizen can
post himself concerning conditions for the
Presidency, Governorship, Mayoralty. There
will be greater certainty in getting the right
men in the high places if the little places are
not voted for at the same time. Then let
the big men appoint the little ones — and be
responsible for them. Drive the political
specialists out of business by making them
unnecessary.
The Short Ballot means the concentration
of responsibility.
THE MORAL STANDARDS OF TWO PERIODS
THE victims of the British muskets fired
in State Street, Boston, on a fatal day
in 1770 were three inconspicuous persons;
the best-known was a Negro servant. The
other day a solitary Britisher, domiciled in
Boston, fired a volley which he meant should
play havoc with the reputations of the whole
array of Revolutionary heroes. Sam Adams
was a dead-beat; John Hancock was an
embezzler; the whole Revolutionary outfit
was a motley crew of crooks and ne'er-do-
wells — so declared Mr. James Stark, offering
evidence of the truth of his charges.
Who cares? What does it matter, beyond
the momentary discomfiture of a few com-
plaisant Bostonians ? It is altogether probable
that if the Sons of the Revolution were to
meet the fathers from whom they derive their
glory, many of them would hesitate to shake
hands with the uncouth, ignorant, slave-
trading, rum-guzzling rascals who were no
small element of the Continental armies.
Respectable folk were largely Tories in the
good old days.
What does it matter? Only that we have
had, some of us, the wrong idea of history.
Saints and heroes were only men. It is per-
haps a natural, but it is a foolish, idea to
erect them into viceless, passionless paragons.
Washington was profane and had an eye
for the ladies; Lincoln, in his early days, was
a vindictive infidel and a purveyor of unprint-
able stories. When Ward Lamon published
a book telling the ordinary, homely truth
about the martyred President, such a storm
of abuse broke on the author's head that he
dared not print the second volume of his work.
To-day we welcome the truth about Lincoln
and Washington — and think no less of the
mighty heroes because we know their faults.
The Revolutionists whom Mr. Stark relent-
lessly exposes were probably — very human,
let us say; but they made some mighty inter-
esting history; and it is reassuring to know
that they were human.
Mr. Stark is not alone in his reflections on
the morals of the earlier generation. Pro-
fessor Borden Bowne — who also lives in
Boston, thus proving the truth of the proverb
that Boston is not so much a city as a state of
mind — says that everybody was wicked in
the old days. Most of the forefathers, accord-
ing to Professor Bowne, were slave-traders
and drunkards. Colleges and churches raised
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
money by lotteries and in other such ways.
Ministers could not meet to ordain a new
brother without consuming enough liquor to
stock a bar.
n
All this is true, and more. Times have
changed. If the patriarchs and prophets were
to return to earth to-day, one would not intro-
duce many of them to his family. Most of
them would go to jail if the law were enforced
on them.
Look about on the world and remark the
moral elevation that has been going on in the
last half-century. It is like some terrestrial
upheaval that has thrust up new plateaus on
the site of half-submerged swamps. Society
has grown merciful. Conscience, both private
and public, has acquired a delicacy which
former days could not have understood. The
law recognizes new rights and new wrongs.
The insane, no longer chained in cellars, are
tenderly cared for. The criminal is beginning
to be seen as a pathetic figure to be cured
rather than to be punished. The heart of
mankind has become responsive to a thousand
forms of suffering to which it was formerly
indifferent. The gallantries of war are no
longer acclaimed as are the heroisms of peace
— the self-devotion of the physician, the
patience of the scientist. Conversation has
become decent.
We in America have entered so definitely
upon a new moral dispensation that when some
belated trial brings to view acts of corporations
or of politicians now universally seen to be
intolerable, we are asked to excuse them
because it was ten yeajs ago "and everybody
did it then." The ribald personal epithet
of the days of Greeley, Dana, and Bennett,
the general corruption of the day of the Credit
Mobilier and the Star Routes revelations, the
defiant crookedness of the day of Jim Fisk
and Jay Gould, seem already a long way off.
There are wrongs enough to right, piteous
sorrows enough to salve, still, but the world
has come to the dawn of a new moral era, a
new birth of the human conscience. There
can be no doubt about that.
A TASK FOR THE CONSCIENCE OF THE FUTURE
YET our social conscience has a long way to
go before it reaches the gates of efficient
perfection — a very long way to go. Consider
its lagging, for example, in such a mire as
this: The daily newspapers reported the
other day "the retirement from business" of a
firm of speculators who have "made their
pile" and propose to enjoy themselves hence-
forth. There is nothing immoral in a rational
enjoyment of life, after middle age or at any
period; and surely it is in every way commend-
able to retire from a career of speculation.
But the career of speculation itself? Here
are men (and there are many such) who have
added not a grain of wheat nor a boll of cotton
to the world's wealth, who have added not a
dollar to real value by a necessary service,
such as merchants or millers or shippers legiti-
mately add. But they have acquired fortunes
by betting on the rise and fall of prices.
Now comes the place where our social
conscience has play — or ought to have. If
such retired men have worked according to
the usual rules of the "exchange" or the
"pit," and if in their retirement they run the
usual course of touring the world as rich
Americans — an automobile-champagne life —
and conform to the conventions of this life,
and die prematurely of over-eating or of
over-speeding, we put no especial condem-
nation on them, and we write respectable
obituaries of them. Fortunes got in this way
and lives spent in this way are yet tolerantly
and sometimes even approvingly regarded.
Suppose they have their portraits painted
and leave more or less interesting records or
traditions behind them, and a hundred years
hence their descendants look back at them
as forefathers or as founders of their families
— if they know the truth about them will
these descendants reverently regard them?
or will they wish to forget how their fortunes
were made, and how their period of retire-
ment was spent?
It is a good and cheerful and hopeful guess
that the social conscience will, in a generation or
two, regard them as a kind of highwaymen — as
strong parasites — and that their descendants
will have to console themselves by recalling
the great advance in morals between "our
day" and theirs. "Everybody did it then."
PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON OF PRINCETON
IT MAY be an old-fashioned notion but it is
a sound notion, that a college is an institu-
tion to teach boys. It is not primarily a place
for research, or an institution for the .main-
tenance of eminent men, or for the production
of learned treatises. These are all very
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EFFORTS TO HARNESS THE WAVES AND THE SUN
12763
valuable and a college or university that has
them is thereby the more famous and sometimes
the more useful. Still, the main job of schools,
of high or low degree, is to teach youth.
Now one of the most noteworthy efforts to
emphasize good teaching that has been made
in our college life in recent times is the tutorial
system that President Woodrow Wilson intro-
duced at Princeton. That helped toward
good teaching and good training by dividing
the undergraduates into small groups, and
putting each group, and consequently every
individual student, under the personal direction
of a teacher. This is a great achievement.
Along with this, President Wilson, as all
the academic world knows, has striven to
break up the cliques in Princeton college-life,
and to make the student community in fact a
democracy. This is another great achievement
Now these two changes, if there were no
more to his credit, would give Mr. Wilson a
high place in our educational history — so
high and useful a place that any impediment
in his way must be regarded as a grave mis-
fortune. In every way regrettable, then, is
the unfortunate, bitter controversy about the
proposed graduate school at Princeton, which
has divided the faculty, the trustees, the
alumni, and the friends of that school into
two camps. The intricate course of the
controversy is too much for the patience of
any man outside the Princeton family. But
the world in general, and the outside educa-
tional world in particular, takes an interest
in it because it has threatened — or seemed to
threaten — the full development by Mr. Wilson
of these two great innovations in college life.
Here is a man of originality and of con-
structive imagination in educational work, a
man who sees clearly the complex task of train-
ing youth in a democracy and sees it whole,
and has the courage to work by a well-matured
philosophy toward large ends; and it is worth
more to real educational progress that he should
be left free and unhindered than any con-
ceivable graduate school or any contribution
of money could possibly be worth. If the
unfortunate controversy be kept alive, it will be
Princeton that will be put on trial, and not he.
AH ARCHBISHOP'S LITERARY SONS
IF THE three sons of the late Arch-
bishop of Canterbury were remarkable
in nothing else, they would be sufficiently
notable in that they are jointly responsible,
before the oldest has reached the age of fifty,
for sixty books. But fortunately this remark-
able productivity is a matter for which the
reading public may well be thankful. The
eldest, Arthur Christopher Benson, has to
his credit more than a score of books, poems,
essays, biographies, and letters; and he is a rare
example of the writer with a true literary touch
who can still talk to the large public through
that essay medium which is so often declared
out-of-date in this driven generation. Edward
Frederic, the novelist, who produced anony-
mously that delectable frivolity, " Dodo," while
engaged in archaeological research at Athens,
has gone steadily on with an average of three
books every two years since 1893 — and his
art has steadily deepened, until he has built a
firm reputation as a writer who can at once
depict the charm of the fascinating modern
woman of the world, can point the keenest satire
upon the follies of " smart" society, and can
strike the deepest human note of ideality.
The youngest son, Father Hugh Robert Ben-
son, Catholic priest and sportsman, has pub-
lished over a baker's dozen of books before
he is forty — ranging from "The Religion
of a Plain Man" to highly colored, almost
melodramatic, fiction. All three are unmarried.
EFFORTS TO HARNESS THE WAVES AND
THE SUN
ANEW YORK machinist has a small tank
with two compartments which are
connected. Into one he pours a pail of water,
and in the other is a series of. floats. Mechani-
cally he agitates the water in such a way that
he produces the up-and-down motion of the
waves, and the floats rise and fall as ships at
anchor. By means "of an ingenious gearing,
the movement of the floats is made to revolve
a shaft, and the shaft is so connected that it
transforms the mechanical force into electric
current. Within a minute from the time
he starts to make his waves, a small electric
fan will begin to revolve, or a tiny electric
bulb will light up.
The inventor says that this experiment has
been carried out on a large scale in the ocean
itself. Moreover, this harnessing of wave-
power by means of floats is no new achieve-
ment. It has been accomplished by several
men in several ways.
This particular inventor is not a dreamer.
He is a practical machinist who daily directs
the energies of a dozen other machinists in a
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THE MARCH OF EVENTS
typewriter factory. He now proposes a system
whereby power stations may be established
anywhere along the seashore, connected with
large floats anchored off-shore. It is the
connecting device, only, for which he claims
originality.
Another man in New York would harness
the sim. He, too, is a practical man and will
show you that he can drive fans and light
lamps with electricity drawn from the sun's
rays. Nor is the principle of this achieve-
ment a new discovery. His invention is
merely which of an alloy that will transform
heat energy into electric power.
This inventor has a much wider horizon.
All that he asks is a flat surface exposed to the
direct rays of the sun. He has a vision of
busy factories whose wheels are turned by the
power that comes from the alloy on the roof;
of ships crossing the Atlantic with power being
steadily manufactured on the topmost deck.
"But what will happen in cloudy weather?"
you ask. The surplus energy that is generated
on bright days will be accumulated in storage
batteries for emergency use.
It is quite possible that neither of the
inventors may have actually brought these
alluring possibilities within the limits of com-
mercial success. Yet the fact that even
experimental success has been attained shows
the way in which another generation may
carry on its work, even when coal and wood
are on the road to exhaustion.
It would certainly not be amazing if we
should live to see both the ocean and the
sun working in harness. Neither task is as
incredible as the wireless telephone was.
There are dozens of other inventions that
startle the imagination*— inventions which
are also yet in the experimental stage. But
these two tap inexhaustible sources of power,
at a time when alarm is rising of our vanishing
resources. And, by a coincidence, these two ex-
periments were brought to the attention of this
magazine within twenty-four hours of each other.
RURAL HEALTH BY COOPERATIVE WORK
TO South Carolina belongs the distinction
of having called the first State Conference
on the Conservation of Public Health. A
committee, composed of President S. C.
Mitchell, of the State University, J. W. Bab-
cock, and W. E. Gonzales, Editor of the
Columbia State, prepared a practical and
comprehensive plan of state-wide work. Pre-
vention is the key-note of it all. The churches,
the schools, the boards of commerce, and other
voluntary organizations are asked to make
a vigorous campaign of education. The
medical profession will be encouraged to further
this educational work in every possible way.
The legislature and state officials will be
urged to increase the efficiency of health
officers, and both to extend and to enforce
the sanitary laws. The problem of rural sani-
tation can be solved by the coSperative en-
deavor of all such agencies, and in no other
way. This plan has both novelty and direct-
ness, and surely no more useful work can be
done in the world.
PRAISE AND BLAME AND ERRORS
THE praise of The World's Work that
some of its readers are kind enough to
write is highly appreciated by those who make
the magazine — is, in fact, among the best
rewards of the editorial life. For instance,
from Salt Lake City comes the assurance that
"your analysis of the situation at Washington
is marvelous" — that is to say, satisfactory to
that subscriber. On the same day a subscriber
from Kansas City was kind enough to say:
"I want to tell you of the friends that your
magazine has made here." Another from
San Francisco: "Permit me to express my
admiration of your magazine and of the high
standard of articles it contains." From South
Carolina comes a more definite letter:
"A month since I read to the superintendent
of schools of this county an article in your maga-
zine entitled 'Education from the Ground Up.'
That article has been the means of establishing
probably the first rural high school in the state to
acquire land for agricultural purposes. Cross
Keys High School is to be built and conducted
along the same lines as the school described in the
article. Won't you give me permission to publish
that article in the local papers, as I want every
man and woman in this county to read it?"
Of course this tune, like every other one,
has variations. Here is one variation, by a
gentleman who lives at Orrville, Ohio:
"I think I will drop The World's Work,
although I have been a constant subscriber since
the first. I think I commenced the second year.
I like most of its contributions. I like it because
it is not filled with stories, which are worth nothing
to me, as life is too short to read them. But your
editorials are too optimistic and too strong in
support of the powers that be, instead of digging
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HOW TO BECOME A WRITER
12765
after frauds and finding fault where faults are
plain to be seen. The people don't want the
Central Bank, the Ship Subsidy, and the Aldrich
Tariff, etc. And no doubt it is owned by the
'Interests.' Yet withal this it has many good
articles, and I shall miss it, and likely will resume
some time. You know it is natural for man to
want a change. IsAAC p0Ntius."
"P. S. I have taken The World's Work
longer than I ever took any other magazine."
We should be glad to pilot Mr. Pontius out
of his error about the ownership of The
World's Work,, if he cared to know the truth.
But we suspect that he forms opinions some-
what too easily to expect them to be very
seriously considered.
And good and bad as The World's Work
is, it has the merit also of being fallible. In a
recent number, Winona — thrown into unpre-
cedented prominence last year by President
Taf t — was put in Wisconsin instead of Min-
nesota, for which an apology is due to —
whom? Worse yet, in one of our "Men in
Action" stories a writer told an incident which
showed that (at that time) the jail at Pensacola,
Florida, was a bad one. The context (so the
writer thought) made it clear that the time
referred to was long past. But The World's
Work was quickly and authoritatively in-
formed that Pensacola now has an admir-
able jail. We pass this information on to all
the world and express the hope that it is
empty, as a jail ought to be in so proud and
prompt a city.
It's a human world that we live in. Praise
and blame and misjudgments and mistakes
play large parts in its activities; and so do
our vanities and so does our patience with one
another. And these qualities and other such
must all go to the making of a magazine if it
be genuine — that is, if it, too, be a natural part
of life in a fallible but good-natured, serious,
cheerful, active world, full both of suspicions
and (thank Heaven) of inspirations.
HOW TO BECOME A WRITER
A LETTER FROM MISS HELEN KELLER TO A BLIND BOY
YOUR letter interested me very much,
and I would gladly tell you how to
become a writer if I knew. But
alas! I do not know how to become one
myself. No one can be taught to write. One
can learn to write if he has it in him; but
he does not learn from a teacher, counsellor,
or adviser. No education, however careful
and wise, will furnish talent. It only gives
material to one who has talent to work with.
If I could explain the process and command
the secrets of this strange, elusive faculty, the
first thing I should do would be to write the
greatest novel of the century, an epic and a
volume of sonnets thrown in. I should at
once set about making great writers of some
hundreds and thousands of Americans. I
should "stump" the states and get bills passed
for the promotion of high-grade literature.
I should see to it that among our national
products authors with noble powers had the
chief place.
I believe the only place to look for the
information you desire is in the biographies
of successful authors. As far as I know, one
fact is common to them all. In their youth
they read good books and began writing in a
simple way. They kept the best models of
style before them. They played with words
until they could criticize their own com-
positions and strike out dull or badly managed
passages. They journeyed on, now taking a
step forward, impelled by the desire to write,
now at a standstill, held back by defects of
style or lack of ideas. One day they wrote
a real book, they awoke to find that they had
a literary gift — the idea had come, and they
were prepared to express it! I would suggest
that you read the autobiographies of Benjamin
.Franklin and Anthony Trollope. In these
books the authors tell us, not how they learned
to write — that was a thing not in their power
to divulge — but what steps they took to
improve their powers. And simple steps
they are, such as you and I can follow. Mr.
Macy's new book, "A Guide to Reading,"
may also be useful to you.
You see, there is but one road to authorship.
It remains forever a way in which each man
must go a-pioneering. The struggles of the
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A LITTLE DEAL IN REAL-ESTATE
pen may be as severe as those of the axe and
hammer. One needs right mental eyes to
discern the signs of talent which writers have
left on their pages, like so many " blazes"
upon trees in the forest. Well! I am not a
novelist or a poet, I fear, and that metaphor
is running away with me. What I mean is, we
can follow where literary folk have gone;
but, in order to be authors ourselves, to be
followed, we must strike into a path where
no one has preceded us. Before we publish
anything, or set ourselves up as writers, we
may imitate and even copy to our hearts'
content, and when the time comes for us to
send forth a message to the world, we shall
have learned how to say it.
From your letter I judge that you do not
read with your fingers. You can do this, and
you ought to learn as soon as possible. You
are indeed fortunate that your parents can
read aloud to you. But there is danger in
only hearing language, and never seeing or
touching it. Your memory will do you all
the more service if you have embossed words
placed at your finger-ends. Then reading for
yourself will give you a better sense of language,
and a good sense of words is the very basis of
style. Would you like me to get some alphabet
sheets in raised letters for you? The seeing
members of my family tell me your letter is
correctly written, and I am sure you can over-
come that little difficulty in your spelling.
Wishing you every success in your work,
I am,
Sincerely yours,
Helen Keller.
A LITTLE DEAL IN REAL-ESTATE
A LITTLE more than a year ago, a
group of business men in a Western
city bought an option on a lot near
the business heart of their city. It ran for
six months, and called for a price of $125,000,
with $50,000 of it on mortgage. These men
formed a company, with a capital stock of
$100,000, none of which was paid in, but all
of which could be called for if wanted. Then
they appointed a president, secretary, and
treasurer at nominal salaries.
They determined to build an office-building
on the plot. They wanted money. They con-
ceived a brilliant plan, and put it into execution.
They made a bond issue for $500,000, at 6 per
cent., to run for ten years. Having this,
they set to work to sell it
They did it by advertising and by agents.
In less than three months they had sold these
bonds for $500,000 gross. The cost of selling
was a little over $100,000, for they paid agents
15 per cent., and the advertising was done on a
wholesale basis. About $400,000 lay in the
bank. At the moment, all that there was to
show for it was an option on a plot — and the
option had cost nothing.
They took it up. They cleared the title
by paying off the mortgage. Plans cost a little,
**"* in the middle of the fourth month ground
"oken for a building that was to cost,
completed and turned over, $225,000. The
salaries were raised, the president getting
$6,000, and the two other active officers $5,000
each. Work went ahead rapidly.
A year after the option was taken, a hand-
some office-building stood on that plot. The
bondholders were told about it in letters.
For the bonds — very liberally — had been
made profit-sharing bonds, and the company
intended to keep the holders just as well
informed as though they were real partners,
not half-and-half creditors and partners. The
profits, it may be noted, were to go one-third
to the bonds and the other two-thirds to the
stock.
At that date, the actual cash cost of the whole
plant was about $350,000. The bonds were
$500,000 and the stock was $100,000. Of
course, the balance sheet did not state it thus
boldly. Included in the "cost" as the bond-
holders saw it were several other items, for
instance: discount on bonds, taxes and insur-
ance, salaries during construction, interest on
bonds during construction, and other items
of miscellaneous expense. In addition, the
company had $11,500 in the bank, kindly left
there by the managers after paying all bills
and other things.
And so they started in business, with a
$350,000 plant pledged to earn, net, $30,000
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A LITTLE DEAL IN REAL-ESTATE
12767
a year in interest, after paying three quite
useless officers $16,000 a year in salaries.
The record, up to this point, looks like one
of the ordinary tales of a development gamble,
wherein some men get good money and many
men get left. But this was in a Western
town — a town gone mad on real-estate this
last year. Therefore the end is cheerful.
An Englishman came along looking for a
chance to make a prime investment. He saw
the new building, not yet half full of tenants.
He interviewed the cheerful secretary, the
placid president, and the quietly confident
treasurer. Finally, he offered $600,000 for
the whole business.
The board of directors met and decided to
sell. The secretary drafted a letter to the
bondholders telling them that, in view of
the remarkable rise in values, it was better
to sell. They sold. The bondholders later
received a statement showing profits of $93,000,
of which they were entitled to one-third.
The bonds were paid off at $1,062 per $1,000.
The investment had netted more than 12 per
cent, in a single year!
Most of the bondholders were delighted.
When, a month ago, they received letters
from the same people telling of another venture
exactly like the last — only much better —
most of them jumped at it. It looks now as
though the new company will raise its own
money without having to pay any advertising
bills or commissions at all.
Somebody will, perhaps, make much money.
Now, this is the gist of the tale: Certain men
in that Western town took in, during the year,
$400,000 net from the bondholders, gained out
of it $16,000 odd in the shape of salaries,
pocketed a profit of more than $60,000 net
cash when they sold the property, then turned
back the money and some profits to the bond-
holders, and quit. To do this, they did not
put up or risk a single cent of their own money.
They ran a successful but utterly reckless
gamble in real-estate — and the money they
used was — yours!
This country and Canada are full of plans
just like this. Perhaps there has not been
in the last twenty .years a period when so many
concerns, big and little, were doing just this
sort of thing with the money of the people.
The thing can be done — has been done
very successfully — so long as values rise.
When they stop rising — it is not even necessary
that they should fall — the game is up. For
it is self-evident that city properties built this
way cannot earn charges, expenses, and
depreciation, in competition with similar plants
that represent a real investment all the way
through.
It is a fallacy of the real-estate market that
all the "water" has been soaked up by the
stock and bond markets. As a matter of
serious fact, a new real-estate development
company that raises capital in the investment
world must pay close to 25 per cent, in cost of
selling its securities. In the case of the com-
pany whose short and glorious record is
sketched in this story, all the capital stock and
one-quarter of the bonds were pure "water."
You may go to any city of any considerable
size on this continent and find instances that
are even worse than the one cited here. A
huge mass of this sort of investment is offered to
the public all the time — and the public buys.
People will buy any sort of bond or
security that represents standard property in
their own city. Cities like New York and
Chicago produce and market, month by month,
millions of dollars' worth of such securities.
The slogan of the trade is this: "You cannot
go wrong in central city real-estate!"
A man who questions that slogan is usually
called an enemy to the country. But it is not
true. You can go wrong in central city real-
estate. You cannot go wrong so long as the
real-estate keeps on going up; but the men that
build office-buildings in the highest-priced
region on earth — downtown New York —
are mighty glad to get out whole with 4 per
cent, a year.
There are plenty of good securities in this
market, and a man need not go blindly buying
equities in the dreams of promoters. You can
buy gilt-edge first-mortgages, if you like; but
they will not pay you much over 4^ per cent,
at best. You can buy second mortgages,
and they won't give you much over five per
cent. Or you may buy debentures and other
credit-secured obligations of old, strong, reput-
able, panic-tried real-estate companies — and
they will yield you as much sure revenue as
the new experiments.
Now, what is the use of being the tail to
another man's kite? If you want to speculate
in real-estate, go and do so somewhere where
you know the town. Don't go into a game
where you take all the risk and are generously
allowed to get one-third of the profits — reck-
oned after all possible deductions. C. M. K.
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INSURING YOUR LIFE INSURANCE
A MAN in a small Connecticut town wrote
to The World's Work in February,
- setting forth the details of an episode
that made him think very deeply about his
life insurance, of which he carries $20,000, all
in standard companies.
Three years ago his brother died, leaving
a widow with two sons, aged thirteen and
fifteen. His estate consisted of $20,000 life
insurance, a comfortable home, and a small
amount of savings and investments. The
widow had been only slightly in touch with
the business affairs of her husband, but she
thought that she understood how to use the
money. She declined all assistance from her
relatives and connections, and announced her
intention to administer the estate herself.
Two years passed without any apparent
trouble. Once the brother heard that the
two boys had been taken out of the public
schools and sent to an expensive preparatory
school in New England. "Successful invest-
ments " was the only explanation given. Then,
about a year ago, he heard again of the family;
this time the older boy had gone to work, and
the younger was back in the public schools.
Six months ago a letter called him to the aid
of that family. Investigation revealed a state
of affairs that is too familiar. The vicissitudes
of the so-called investment market had reduced
the total capital of the family to one bond,
worth about $900, a group of industrial stocks
worth practically nothing, and the house, now
pledged under a mortgage to the extent of
nearly two-thirds of its value. It was the
refusal of the bank to increase the mortgage
that led to the call for help.
The details of the catastrophe are the ordi-
nary record of the usual sordid transaction
whereby money is transferred from the
pockets of the ignorant to the packets of the
experienced. The larger part of the fund
was at first invested in good mortgages. The
purchase of the mortgages had attracted the
attention of a local lawyer, a young, enthusias-
tic man. A friend of his in the East had
recently become the secretary of a plantation
venture in South America, whose stock paid
dividends of 1 per cent a month.
The moving of the boys from the public
schools to the preparatory school marked
the transition from 5 per cent, and safety to
1 per cent a month with glowing prospects.
Presently the crash came. To protect her
investment, the widow mortgaged her house,
and all the cash was poured into the gap
between the home and ruin — and, of course,
the boys came down the ladder again. The
one solitary bond that remained was a bond
bought some years before by the father of the
family, and the only reason it remained was
that the widow had been unable to find any-
body that knew where it could be sold.
When our correspondent wrote about his
own insurance, he had just come back from
a careful contemplation of the wreck.
"What can a man do," he asks, "to protect
his own family? My own wife is just like
her — too busy in her home duties to learn
anything about the business world. It seems
that the better wife and mother a woman is,
the surer she is to be an easy mark for sharpers
when protection is removed."
Here is a practical question, and one that
occurs every day. There are a dozen answers,
all sufficient, but offering various advantages.
A retired clergyman in Ontario thought
that he solved it when he stipulated, in his
will, that the estate should be "immediately
turned into cash and invested in securities
legal for trustees in this Province."
Literally followed, the instruction would
have cut nearly 25 per cent, from the principal
of the estate, for the administration began at
the depth of the panic of 1907. When liqui-
dation was possible at reasonable prices, the
"legal" investments for Ontario were paying
little more than 3.70 per cent.
Yet, in spite of some drawbacks, the dis-
position of an estate by will remains the
standard method for securing safety to the
family. A direct warning against unsafe
investments, written into a will, carries more
weight than the same warning given in any
other way.
In many parts of the country, the habit of
naming as executor or trustee some well-
known trust company is growing. It has
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INSURING YOUR LIFE INSURANCE
12769
many advantages. The fees that can be
charged for such service are fixed by law, and
there need be no fear on that score. The only
material drawback is that the rate of interest
obtainable under the law governing investment
of trustees in most states is very low, and when
the taxes and fees are subtracted from the in-
come the net result will be not much if any over
4 per cent., particularly in the Eastern States.
A friend of the editor, the manager of an
agency that writes all sorts of insurance,
has a clause in his will directing the use of a
fund of $20,000 represented by a life-insurance
policy. He directs that if he should die before
his wife is thirty, she shall invest the fund in
certain specified bonds, all of which yield 5 per
cent. net. During the next twenty years
following his death, the will allows her to
withdraw, in addition to the semi-annual
interest, $5,000 of the principal, this provision
being intended to cover the education and
maintenance of the children until they are
self-supporting.
At the end of the twenty-year period, he
figures that her fund will be $15,000. At that
time, with the family earning its own living,
he wishes an income of $1,000 a year for his
wife. The capital fund of the $15,000 remains
to provide it.
His instructions are "at that time she shall
buy an annuity of $1,000 a year from the
Insurance Company, and use the
residue of this fund, if any, for her own personal
comfort."
A good many companies write such annuities.
I find the cost of a non-participating annuity for
a woman of fifty to be about $15,500. It will
give her $1,000 a year for the rest of her life.
The instructions in this will were drawn
very carefully by a skilful lawyer, for a specific
and .well-defined purpose. The annuity is
probably the very best thing that could have
been used for that purpose. The purchase
of annuities for people below fifty years of age
is not usually recommended. As a matter
of fact, if this man had instructed his wife
to buy an annuity for $1 ,000 at the age of thirty,
she would have had the income of $1,000 a
year for the rest of her life; but she would not
have had the $5,000 to educate her children and
help meet the strain of the heavy years. As it
is, he has provided nearly the same income
and the extra fund of $5,000 without sacrificing
any safety — for the bonds are bonds that the
insurance company itself buys for its funds.
In all probability, the heavy years in her
case will be, if he should die before she is
thirty, the ten years from forty to fifty. For
the first ten years, she will have $1,000 a year.
For the next ten years, taking out $500 a year
of principal, she will have an average of
$1,382.52. After that, the annuity of $1,000
a year will provide for her.
Other clauses in the will provide for the use
of the fund in case he should die when she is
"between thirty and thirty-five," "between
thirty-five and forty," etc. They follow the
same general lines, being designed to give her
the income necessary to meet the probable
conditions.
The simplest and the easiest of all methods
to guard against unhappy accidents of the
nature described in the introductory story is
to buy life-insurance policies that provide for
regular payments to the beneficiary at stated
intervals — a year, six months, a month, etc.
These policies are quite common, and many
of the biggest and best of the companies write
them. The insured may himself direct the
payment to be made in this way, or he may
instruct his beneficiary, in his will or in any
other way, to choose this option when the
policy falls due.
There are all sorts of variations possible
under these policies. A policy of $20,000 may
be made to yield $2,270 a year for ten years,
or from $800 to $1,300 a year for life, depending
on the age of the beneficiary.
These are all perfectly safe methods to
guard against the danger of loss. What might
be best for one man to do might not be best for
another, and special knowledge of the con-
ditions must decide in each case what ought
to be done. The age and health of the wife,
the number and sex of the children, the kind
of home that must be kept up with the
proceeds of the policy — these and a dozen
other all-important factors have to be con-
sidered. A little bit of honest advice from
the insurance comp&v itself may determine
the best thing to be done — but of course a
good many companies will choose for you the
option that will pay the company best.
It is not very hard to figure it out for yourself.
Take out your policy, get a pencil and a piece
of paper, borrow an interest table from the
bank cashier, and spend half an hour "doing
sums." A good many men who are very
wise while they are alive turn out to be pretty
stupid after they die.
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THE HIGH COST OF LIVING TO
CONTINUE
BY
ARTHUR W. PAGE
THERE may be a large number of sub-
sidiary causes for the advance in the
cost of living which can be eliminated
by prosecuting somebody, but the main cause
is fundamental and (for a time, at least), con-
tinuous. We are outgrowing our food supply.
Let us take meat for example.
The price of meat is as high as it has been in
the memory of the oldest housekeeper. People
grumbled when the advance in prices began,
changed butchers as it went on, changed back as
it continued, and then the storm broke. Every
newspaper ran cokimns about the cost of living.
A great meat boycott was inaugurated in the
Middle West and spread rapidly from town to
town. Reforming women made speeches on
street corners, and in Congress committees were
appointed to investigate the causes of the phe-
nomena. The papers and the public blamed
the farmers, the meat trust, and the retailers.
Beef that yielded the farmer $i in 1900 yields
him $1.39 now. But he will tell you, and
prove his statements, that at that price his profit
is less than it used to be. He will show you,
first from his own accounts, and then from the
statistics of the Department of Agriculture, that
"raw" cattle bring no more than they used to.
To change "raw" cattle into finished cattle
requires, usually, one hundred days' feeding —
approximately sixty-five bushels of corn.
Ten years ago corn cost thirty-five cents a
bushel; now it costs sixty cents, or more.
On sixty-five bushels the difference is $16.25,
which is a large increase in the cost of an
animal that sells for $100. The extra cost
of feeding is the farmer's reason for the higher
price he charges at Chicago. And the farmer
is aware that it is often more profitable to sell
his corn as corn.
If the testimony of New York retail butchers
is correct, there is no doubt that all the packers
have combined, and that they maintain uni-
form prices. The meat trust has been on the
public's black-list before, and is looked upon
with suspicion. But the packers can point
to the price they pay for corn-fed cattle. With-
out doubt, they are in a position to exert some
control over the price of beef, but recently it
would seem that they have not arbitrarily
raised prices, but, on the contrary, have in
some measure kept them from increasing.
Then comes the case of the retail butcher,
with whom the public comes in contact and
who bears the actual brunt of their displeasure.
In Washington the retailers are accused of
being in combination, of being too numerous,
and therefore of putting an unnecessary burden
upon the public. There are 3,500 provision
stores of one kind or another in that city of
300,000 people, approximately one store for
every eighty-five people, or about every seven-
teen families. For seventeen families to pay the
rent of a store, the living of the proprietor, his
clerks, messengers, the cost of delivery- wagons,
etc., from the profit on the food they buy seems
excessive. The figures bear this contention out.
The retail prices in Washington are 42 per cent
higher than the wholesale prices. The distribu-
ting system in the capital is too costly.
But, in contrast, let us look at New York,
where there has been as much discontent as
there has been in Washington. The retail
margin over the wholesale price is 20 per cent
If the butcher makes a 5 per cent, profit, he
has 15 per cent, upon which to do business,
which for a dealer in semi-perishable goods at
retail is not high. The butcher shops fur-
nish a good example of the old maxim that
"competition is the life of trade."
A reform in the distributing system might
help if some master mind of organization should
take control of the cattle from the time they are
born until they reach the table as beef, but to
the public mind the dangers of such centralized
power more than offset its advantages.
The fundamental trouble is with the forces of
production. We have grown too fast for our food
supply. The lean years are upon us and no pat-
ent "trust-busting" nor retail regulation is going
permanently to relieve our embarrassment
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THE HIGH COST OF LIVING TO CONTINUE
12771
For the last seventy years the average con-
sumption of meat in the United States has
steadily declined, and likewise has the relative
number of cattle to the population; but always,
until lately, there was a large margin for
export. But settlement has invaded the Wes-
tern ranges, and while the population is con-
stantly increasing, the free grazing-land is
constantly decreasing. The corn crop is not
keeping pace with the needs of the country,
and the farmers are not making good the defici-
encies in the Western cattle.
The number of cattle (other than milch cows)
in the United States between 1905 and 1910
remained practically stationary.
NUMBER OF CATTLE IN THE UNITED STATES
January 1, 1906 47,067,656
January 1, 1907 51,565,731
January 1, 1908 50,073,000
January 1, 1909 49,379,000
January 1, 1910 47,279,000
In the meanwhile, the population has steadily
increased.
The result of this relative decrease in the
number of cattle has been sudden and painful.
What wc export represents our surplus. In
1906 it was 733,000,000 pounds ; in 1909
it had fallen to 419,000,000 pounds. As our
surplus decreases, the price goes up, and we
need not look for an increased production to
ldtoer it to its old level again, for the old condi-
tions are no more. The Western ranges can-
not be enlarged and the price of Eastern farm-
land where cattle and corn are raised is not
going down. There are 2,100,000 fewer cattle
in the United States than there were a year ago.
In the United States there are about
90,000,000 people, and less than 50,000,000
cattle. In the Argentine Republic there are
about 5,250,000 people and 30,000,000 cattle.
In the United States there are nearly two
people per steer, and in Argentina nearly six
cattle per person, and in the Argentine the
ranges are still adequate. Senator Lodge has
spent hours to show that the tariff enables the
seller to get more for his product without the
buyer paying more for it. Yet, in spite of his
explanations, it might be wise to repeal some
of these paragraphs of the last tariff act.
THE TAX ON FOOD
Cattle, if less than one year old, $2 per head; all
oth^r cattle, if valued at not more than $14 per
head, $3.75 per head; if valued at more than $14
per head, 27 J per centum ad valorem.
Swine, $1.50 per head.
Sheep, one year old or over, $1.50 per head; less
than one year old, 75 cents per head.
All other live animals, not specially provided for
in this section, 20 per centum ad valorem.
Meats of all kinds, prepared or preserved, not
specially provided for in this section, 25 per cen-
tum ad valorem.
Poultry, live, 3 cents per pound; dead, 2 cents
per pound.
Taking off the tax on food would enable us
to draw upon other countries to meet our own
deficiencies. Probably, if this duty on food
were removed, there would be no Argentine
beef brought to New York immediately, for
the grooves of trade between Chicago and New
York are worn smooth, while those from
Buenos Ayres are rough and untried; and,
because we have built up the trade, we shall
probably ship beef to England at times when
it might well be used here, but the time when
foreign competition could help to keep down
the prices here would be nearer if the tariff
were removed.
Without this help, and perhaps even with it,
the consumption of meat, that had fallen from
308.9 pounds per capita in 1840 to 182.6 pounds
in 1900, is lower now, and will drop still further.
As with meat, so with other food. A con-
sumer in New York went to a grocery store and
purchased some standard canned and package
goods. The following table shows what he
asked for, what he paid, and what he got:
a consumer's purchases
Supposed Actual
Item Weight Weight Cost
A prepared break-
fast food 12 ounces 15c.
Another breakfast
food 14J ounces 10c.
Package of sugar,
labelled 2 lbs. net 2 lbs. net 20c.
Package of raisins 1 lb. net 1 lb. net 15c.
Canned corn 1 J lb. ij lb. 10c.
Canned corn ij lb. ij lb. 15c.
Baked beans, two (13 ounces 15c.
cans of one brand 1 lb. ( 14 ounces 15c.
Baked beans, an-
other brand 1 lb. 16 ounces 15c.
Can of cocoa, la-
belled J lb. net J lb. net 23c.
Loaf of bread .... 1 lb. 14^ ounces 5c.
The grocers do not talk weights any more.
They ask you if it is a ten, fifteen or twenty-
cent can or package you want; a small, large or
"jumbo" size — not half-pound, pound, or two-
pound. It is not the grocer's fault — this situa-
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12772
THE HIGH COST OF LIVING TO CONTINUE
tion. Many of them have protested to the New
York authorities. The mischief is done before
they receive the goods. For example, it is the
baker, not the grocer, who is responsible for
the under-weight bread. The recognized price
of a loaf of bread is five cents, and the loaf is
supposed to weigh a pound. That was a nor-
mal state of affairs in 1900, when wheat sold
for about sixty cents a bushel and flour for
$3.50 a barrel. Now, when wheat is $1.30 a
bushel, and flour $5.40, it is hard for the baker
to sell the same-sized loaf for five cents, and five
cents is so indelibly fixed in the public mind
as the price of a loaf of bread that it cannot
be changed. So the weight is lowered instead.
When he buys meat, the consumer pays 10,
15, or 20 per cent, more than formerly; when
he buys groceries he gets 10, 15, or 20 per cent
less than he used to get.
This condition is widespread. The NewYork
Superintendent of Weights and Measures says:
"There is sufficient data before me to warrant
New Yorkers in uniting in a demand on Congress
and the Legislature to enact immediately laws
compelling manufacturers, packers, and dealers
to mark the weight, measure, and numerical count
of their goods, or risk rigorous legal punishment.
"Cracker and cereal packages have shrunk
and are still purchased in the belief that they con-
tain what they formerly did. These package goods
are enormously more expensive for the ultimate
consumer than the same quality of bulk goods."
In spite of the fact that most manufacturers
are not specifying weight on their labels, there
are hundreds of cases against short-weight
being prosecuted by the Federal authorities,
under the Pure Food and Drugs Act For
example, on March 15, 1909, an inspector of
the Department of Agriculture found a con-
signment of flour at Wake Forest, N. C, from
a Virginia mill. When weighed, the whole
consignment showed a shortage, and it was
condemned as under-weight
The Government has recently found three
Iowa canners, two Nebraska canners, and one
Illinois canner guilty of selling canned corn
of less than the weight marked upon the labels.
In one case the gross weight of cans labelled
"two pounds" ran from one pound seven
ounces to one pound ten ounces. In another
case each " two-pound" can was found to weigh
1.5 pounds.
This brings us back to the price of corn
again; and the price of wheat, like the price of
corn, is twice what it used to be.
Six months ago, in an article in this maga-
zine, called: "What we Must Do to be Fed,"
Mr. James J. Hill said:
"We grew 504,185470 bushels of wheat in 1882,
when our population was a little over 52,000,000,
and 634,087,000 bushels in 1907, twenty-five
years later. The increase in wheat-yield during
these years, when much of the new land of the West
was being brought under the plow, was a litde over
25 per cent, while population increased 33,000,000,
or over 63 per cent. Obviously, the supply and
demand of bread will not keep pace through the
working of any law of nature. Moreover, pos-
sible increase in wheat production by increasing
acreage is limited. We have no longer a great
area of free public lands. Some lands will be
drained, and there are a few acres of public land
left on which wheat may be raised. But a denser
population makes new demands upon the soil,
and it is more likely on the whole that wheat
acreage will be reduced."
Mr. Hill sees a solution for the whole prob-
lem in better farming methods. But better
farming methods cannot be acquired in a day.
This solution will take time.
In the meanwhile, what can an individual
consumer do? A man moved from Iowa to
Washington, D. C, not long ago, from a com-
munity in which people had not become agi-
tated over the cost of living to a community
where it was an ever-present topic. He had
been there about two months when I saw hi*,
and he said that with the exception of chickens
and eggs, which he had raised in Iowa but had
to buy in Washington, his food bills were about
the same in one place that they were in another,
and considerably below the expenses of his
neighbors who lived with the same degree of
comfort This was because both he and his
wife were skilled purchasers, and they bought
in somewhat larger quantities, and paid cash.
A barrel of potatoes costs $2.50 if bought all
at once. If bought in small quantities, it costs
$4. A retail butcher told me of one woman
who, with care, might have saved 15 per cent
of her bill; of others who allowed the servants
to do the ordering, even when it was waste-
fully done, and he pathetically remarked that
he wished more consumers knew their busi-
ness. That is the vital point now, for whatever
happens to the retailers or the manufacturers,
the consumer must face the fact that food is not
so plentiful as it was, and it is not likely to be
unless the improvement in farming be sudden
and general, and the tariff tax on food be
removed.
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THE WAY TO HEALTH
I. GETTING WELL AT HOME
BY
ONE GETTING WELL
"When the disease [tuberculosis] is limited to an apex, in a man of fairly good personal
and family history, the chances are that he may fight a winning battle if he lives out of doors
in any climate, whether high, dry and cold, or low, moist and warm" — Dr. William Osler.
I GOT my warning before tuberculosis
was very far advanced. In the spring
of 1904 I was drafted into the army
of health-seekers ordered West As a member
of that great army, whose forces are chiefly
concentrated in or near the cities and towns of
eastern Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona,
I was in no way remarkable. My experience
was typical of that of thousands of others.
I became familiar — in Wyoming, Colorado,
Arizona, and California, in boarding-houses,
health-resorts, and sanatoria — with most of the
conditions which are likely to confront the health-
seeker in the West I was fortunate enough to
get good advice almost at the outset (particularly
with regard to the dangers of over-exertion),
and was sensible enough to heed it My mis-
fortune did not involve others, and I was free
from serious financial worry. I had inherited
a rugged constitution and was blessed with
an almost perfect digestion. Everything con-
sidered, I was fighting under favorable auspices.
During the struggle of four and a half years,
the advantage was sometimes with and some-
times against me. At last, however, in the
fall of 1908, the disease seemed about to win
a definite victory. I had by no means given
up the fight, but my last relapse had been of
longer duration and my recovery was less
elastic. One or two more relapses, and the
final phase would undoubtedly set in.
It was certain that I had "worn out" the
climate; yet to move into a "less favorable"
climate would, according to the general opinion,
be equivalent to suicide. Yet, though I was
plainly on the decline, I had not yet reached
the stage where the doctor suggests as tact-
fully as possible that perhaps the patient
would be better off at home, where he could
be made more comfortable.
It was at this time that, acting on the advice
of an able specialist, I decided to try the
somewhat desperate experiment of going East
for my health. Accompanied by my mother,
who was visiting me at the time, I started for
my home in Vermont about the middle of
October, 1908. My instructions were to go
to bed and stay in bed, through the coming
winter at least, in the open air.
I lost no time about it. While a sleeping
porch was being built adjoining a second-
story chamber in the rear of the house, I was
installed on a side piazza, where privacy was
secured by means of portable screens. My
meals were served in the house, but I spent
nearly twenty-three hours a day in bed. The
same regimen was continued when I moved
into my sleeping-porch. My meals (identical
with those of the rest of the family, with the
addition of about three pints of milk and six
raw eggs daily) were now served in the chamber
adjoining, one of the windows of which had
been made into a door. Physical exertion
was reduced pretty nearly to the minimum.
I got up for my meals (dressing was a mere
matter of putting on slippers and bath-robe);
baths, and an alcohol rub at "bedtime."
The rapidity of my improvement under
these conditions was astonishing. I began to
put on flesh at once; within three or four weeks
my daily fever of from one to two degrees had
disappeared; my cough steadily diminished. By
New Year's my clothes (which I had put on
only once before, at Thanksgiving) had become
so tight as to be uncomfortable. A normal
temperature and an expanding waistline! — the
rigors of a Vermont winter were easy to bear.
Nor were these rigors so severe as might be
supposed. Any "graduate" of an Adirondack
sanatorium can testify that it is possible to
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12774
THE WAY TO HEALTH
sleep in a temperature well below zero with
entire comfort. I wore no head-covering of
any sort, day or night. During the day, while
propped up in bed reading, I wore a hunter's
jacket lined with sheepsskin, in addition to
a coat-sweater. On cold days I could turn
the collar above my ears. At night, the pillow
below and the blankets above afforded ample
protection. I mention this because the fresh
air benefited my scalp as well as my lungs.
My hair thickened perceptibly.
By the middle of May, 1909, my lungs had
healed to such an extent that my physician
could hardly detect any " moisture." My
cough, though it had not wholly disappeared,
was comparatively infrequent. My weight had
increased from less than 130 to more than 180.
Even to so enthusiastic an advocate of the rest-
cure as I had become, it seemed rather absurd
to continue to spend all my time in bed.
Little by little, very cautiously, I have
resumed normal habits. I still spend a good
part of the day in the open air and sleep in
my porch — no one who has accustomed him-
self to refreshing sleep in the open will ever
willingly return to a stuffy chamber. Three
laboratory examinations of my sputum, at
intervals of more than a month, have failed to
discover any tubercle bacilli. For the first
time in five years, it seems reasonable to hope
that before very long I can safely resume a
moderately active, if somewhat restricted life.
In estimating the significance of this state-
ment it should be borne in mind that when
my real rest-cure began, mine was not an inci-
pient, but an advanced case of four and a half
years9 standing. Both lungs were widely
involved. Neither the "opsonic" treatment
nor the hygienic methods learned in a first-
class sanatorium had availed permanently to
check the progress of the disease. Neither my
physician nor any one else hoped more from
my novel experiment than that it might pro-
long my life for a time. Any ultimate recovery
seemed out of the question. It is true that my
ultimate recovery is not yet assured. Serious
imprudence, like undue exposure resulting in
a hard cold, might bring on a relapse which
would speedily undo a year's progress. The
fact remains, nevertheless, that the chances,
instead of being almost hopelessly against me,
seem now decidedly in my favor.
If absolute rest under the conditions which
I have described could accomplish this result
for me, what might not be hoped from it in
the case of one whose disease is still incipient?
II. SELF-CURE WITH FRESH CREAM
BY
DR. B. J. KENDALL
11 The cure of tuberculosis is a question of nutrition; digestion and assimilation control the
situation; make a patient grow fat and the local disease may be left to take care of itself"
— Dr. William Osler.
THE all-important thing is to drink large
quantities of milk strippings (the very
last of tie milking, which is all cream when a
proper cow is selected) > This seems so simple
and easy that many have refused to follow direc-
tions, and demand medicines to cure them; but
there has not yet been discovered any medicine
that is a specific for consumption.
To get the best results a healthy cow should
be selected, one that does not cough and one
that gives very rich milk. A Jersey cow is
preferable. The milk should always be tested,
to be sure that there is a large per cent, of
cream in it.
The last quart should be milked into a
separate dish which rests in a larger vessel
containing warm water just sufficient to pre-
vent the strippings from cooling below blood-
heat. The cow should be thoroughly cleaned
to prevent any dirt getting into the milk, so
that the patient can blow back the froth and
drink at once without straining it, which
cools it too much.
Begin by drinking nearly a pint in the morn-
ing and the same at night; increase the quan-
tity gradually so that in ten or fifteen days a
full quart will be taken twice a day. It should
be taken immediately after milking, before it
has had time to cool. Take as much as you
can without too much discomfort; then rest
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THE TELEPHONE AS IT IS TODAY
12775
two or three minutes, drink more and rest
again; and so on until a full quart has been
taken. In about fifteen minutes the patient
should eat at the table such articles of food as
are known to agree with the stomach. At noon
eat as usual.
When the strippings are not allowed to cool
below blood-heat and are taken immediately
after being milked, a full quart will be trans-
fused into the circulation in a remarkably
short time.
I have never seen a patient who could not
take the strippings without any discomfort
worth mentioning when directions were followed
strictly, although some have declared before
tying that they could not; but when they
delayed taking it for half an hour and the milk
had cooled ten degrees, I have seen half a pint
make them very sick. The great secret of
success is in taking it immediately after milking
and not allowing it to cool below blood-heat,
taking a full quart morning and evening and
having milk that is very rich.
The following is a typical case: Mrs. A. E.
was suddenly startled to find that her weight
was forty pounds below normal. She was
coughing terribly and soon had a very profuse
hemorrhage from the lungs that came near
taking her life. She at once began the use of
the milk strippings after the hemorrhage was
stopped, and after ten or fifteen days she found
that she had gained nearly a pound a day.
She was soon able to get out of bed and go
around the house. She continued to gain quite
rapidly; and as her weight and strength increased
her cough decreased. When she had gained
thirty pounds in about three months, her
cough left her. I had her continue the same
diet for six or eight weeks longer; she gained
ten pounds more and then would not take on
more flesh. By that time she was as well as
she ever had been, and continued well after
the strippings were discontinued.
She took no medicine after the hemorrhage
was stopped except a little pepsine and some
other digestive and a simple remedy to ease
the cough.
I do not remember any case that followed
the directions strictly that was not cured.
I have found the same diet, when above
directions were carried out carefully, equally
successful in increasing the weight and strength
of those run down and debilitated from other
causes.
THE TELEPHONE AS IT IS TO-DAY
MORE THAN 50,000 COMMUNITIES CONNECTED BY THE BELL COMPANY ALONE—
A NETWORK OF NERVES REQUIRING ELEVEN MILLION MILES OF WIRE
BY »
HERBERT N. CASSON
THE telephone business did not really
begin to overspread the earth until
1896, but the keynote of expansion
was sounded by Theodore Vail when the
telephone was a babe in arms. In 1879 Vail
said, in a letter written to one of his captains:
"Tell our agents that we have a proposition on
foot to connect the different cities for the pur-
pose of personal communication, and in other
• ways to organize a grand telephonic system."
This was brave talk at that time, when there
were not in the whole world as many telephones
as there are to-day in Cincinnati. Most tele-
phone men regarded it as nothing more than
talk. They did not see any business future
for the telephone except in short-distance
service. But Vail was in earnest. His pre-
vious experience as the head of the railway
mail service had lifted him up to a higher point
of view. He knew the need of a national
system of communication that would be quicker
and more direct than either the telegraph or
the Post Office. "I saw that if the telephone
could talk one mile to-day," he said, "it
would be talking a hundred miles to-morrow."
Four months after he had prophesied the
"grand telephonic system," he encouraged Mr.
Charles J. Glidden to build a telephone line
between Boston and Lowell. This was the
first inter-city line. It was well-placed, for the
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12776
THE TELEPHONE AS IT IS TO-DAY
owners of the Lowell mills lived in Boston, and
it made a small profit from the start. This
success cheered Vail on to a master effort.
He resolved to build a line from Boston to
Providence, and was so stubbornly bent upon
doing this that, when the Bell Company refused
to act, he organized a company and built the
line. It was a failure at first and went by the
name of " Vail's Folly." But one of the experts,
by a happy thought, doubled the wire and thus
in a moment established two new factors in
the telephone business — the Metallic Circuit
and the Long-Distance Line.
At once the Bell Company came over to
VaiPs point of view, bought his new line, and
launched out upon what seemed to be the
foolhardy enterprise of stringing a double
wire from Boston to New York. This was
to be not only the longest of all telephone lines,
strung on 10,000 poles; it was to be a line
de luoce, built of glistening red copper, not iron.
Its cost was to be $70,000, which was an
enormous sum in those hard-scrabble days.
There was much opposition to such extrava-
gance and much ridicule. "I wouldn't take
that line as a gift," said one of the Bell Com-
pany's officials.
But when the last coil of wire was stretched
into place, and the first "Hello" leaped from
Boston to New York, the new line was a
success. It marked a turning point in the
history of the telephone, when the day of small
things had ended.
While this epoch-making line was being
strung, Vail was pushing his "grand telephonic
system" policy by organizing The American
Telephone and Telegraph Company. It was
the introduction into business of the staff-
and-line method of organization.
Seldom has a company been started with
so small a capital and so vast a purpose. It
had no more than $100,000 of capital stock
in 1885; but its declared object was nothing
less than to establish a system of wire com-
munication for the human race:
" To connect one or more points in each and
every city, town or place in the State of New York,
with one or more points in each and every other
city, town or place in said state, and in each and
every other of the United States, and in Canada
and Mexico; and each and every of said cities,
towns or places is to be connected with each and
every other city, town or place in said states and
countries, and also by cable and other appropriate
means with the rest of the known world"
So ran Vail's dream, and for nine years he
worked mightily to make it come true. He
remained until the various parts of the business
had grown together, and until his plan was
fairly well understood. Then he went out,
into a series of picturesque enterprises, until
he had built up a four-square fortune — and
recently, in 1907, he came back to be the
head of the telephone business, and to com-
plete the work of organization that he had
started thirty years before.
The man who was chosen to succeed Vail
was John Elbridge Hudson, a long-pedigreed
New Englander, whose ancestors had smelted
iron ore in Lynn when Charles the First was
King. He was a lawyer by profession and
a university professor by temperament. His
specialty, as a man of affairs, had been marine
law; and his hobby was the collection of rare
books and old English engravings. He was
a master of the Greek language, and very fond
of using it. He even carried this preference so
far as to write his business memoranda in Greek.
He gave the telephone business tone and
prestige. He built up its credit. And he
prepared the way for the period of expansion
by borrowing fifty millions for improvements
and by adding greatly to the strength and
influence of the company.
Hudson remained at the head of the tele-
phone table until his death in 1900, and thus
lived to see the dawn of the era of big business.
By 1896, the telephone engineer was able to
handle his wires, no matter how many. By
this time, too, the public was ready for the
telephone. For the next ten-year period the
keynote of telephone history was expansion.
Under the prevailing flat-rate plan of pay-
ment, all customers paid the same yearly
price and then used their telephones as often
as they pleased. This was a simple method,
and the most satisfactory one for small towns
and farming regions. But in a great city such
a plan proved to be suicidal. In New York,
for instance, the price had to be raised to
$240, which lifted the telephone as high above
the mass of the citizens as though it were a
piano or a diamond sunburst.
How to extend the service and at the same
time cheapen it to small users — that was the
Gordian knot, and the man who unquestion-
ably did most to untie it was Edward J. Hall.
It was he who "broke the jam," as a lumber-
man would say, by establishing the message-
rate system.
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THE TELEPHONE AS IT IS TO-DAY
12777
By this plan, which is now general in the
larger Amtrican cities, a user of the telephone
pays a fixed minimum price for a certain
number of messages per year, and extra for all
messages over this number. The large- user
pays more, and the little user pays less. It
opened up the way to such an expansion of
telephone business as Bell, in his rosiest dreams,
had never imagined. In three years, after
1896, there were twice as many users; in six
years there were four times as many; in ten
years there were eight to one. What with the
message-rate and the pay-station, the telephone
was now on its way to be universal.
When the message-rate was fairly well
established, Hudson died and in his place
came Frederick P. Fish, also a lawyer and a
fiostonian. Fish was a popular, optimistic
man, with a "full-speed-ahead" temperament.
He pushed the policy of expansion almost
to the point of explosion. He borrowed money
in stupendous amounts — $150,000,000 at one
time — and flung it into a campaign of red-
hot development.
To describe this growth, we might say that
the Bell telephone secured its first million of
capital in 1879; i*5 firs* million of earnings
in 1882; its first million of dividends in 1884;
its first million of surplus in 1885; paid out its
first million for legal expenses by 1886; began
first to send a million messages a day in 1888;
had strung its first million miles of wire in
1890; and installed its first million telephones
in 1898. By 1897 it had spun as many cob-
webs of wire as the Western Union itself; by
1900 it had twice as many miles of wire as the
Western Uinion, and five times as many in
1905. Such was the plunging progress of the
Bell Companies in this period of expansion that
by 1905 they had swept past all European
countries combined, not only in the quality
of the service, but in the actual number of
telephones in use. This, too, without a cent
of public money, or the protection of a tariff,
or the prestige of a Governmental Bureau.
By 1893 Boston and New York were talking
to Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Wash-
ington. One-half of the people of the United
States were within talking distance of each
other. The thousand-mile talk had ceased to
be a fairy tale. Several years later the western
end of the line was pushed over the plains to
Nebraska, enabling the spoken word in Boston
to be heard in Omaha. Slowly and with much
effort the public was taught to substitute the
telephone for travel. A special long-distance
salon was fitted up in New York City to
entice people into the habit of talking to other
cities. Cabs were sent for customers; and
when one arrived, he was escorted over Oriental
rugs to a gilded booth, draped with silken
curtains. This was the famous " Room Nine."
By such and many other allurements a larger
idea of telephone service was given to the
public mind, until by 1909 at least 1,600 New
York-Chicago conversations were held per
month, and the revenue from strictly long-
distance messages was $22,000 a day.
By 1906 even the Rocky Mountain Bell
Company had grown to be a $10,000,000 enter-
prise. It had begun at Salt Lake City with
a hundred telephones in 1880. Then it had
reached out to master an area of 413,000 square
miles — a great Lone Land of undeveloped
resources. Its linemen had groped through
dense forests where their poles looked like
toothpicks beside the towering pines and
cedars. They had driven off the Indians, who
wanted the bright wire for ear-rings and
bracelets; and the bears, which mistook the
humming of the wires for the buzzing of bees,
and persisted in gnawing the poles down.
With the most heroic optimism, this Rocky
Mountain Company had persevered until,
in 1906, it had created a 70,000-mile nerve-
system for the Far West.
But it was New York City that was the
record-breaker when the era of telephone
expansion arrived. Here the flood of big
business struck with the force of a tidal wave.
The number of users leaped from 56,000 in
1900 up to 310,000 in 1908. In a single year
of sweating and breathless activity, 65,000
new telephones were put on desks or hung
on walls — an average of one new user for
every two minutes of the business day.
Literally tons and hundreds of tons of
telephones were hauled in drays from the
factory and put in New York's homes and
offices. More and more were demanded
until to-day there are more telephones in New
York City than in the four countries of
France, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland
combined. Mass together all the telephones
of London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester,
Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol, and
Belfast, and there will even then be barely as
many as are carrying the conversations of
this one American city.
In 1879 the New ^k^H^directory
12778
THE TELEPHONE AS IT IS TO-DAY
was a small card, showing 252 names; but
now it has grown to be an 800-page quarterly,
with a circulation of 500,000, and requiring
20 drays, 40 horses, and 400 men to do the
work of distribution. There was one shabby
little Exchange thirty years ago, but now
there are eighty-five Exchanges, as the nerve-
centres of a vast $50,000,000 system. Incred-
ible as it may seem to foreigners, it is literally
true that in a single building in New York —
the Hudson-Terminal — there are more tele-
phones than in Greece and Bulgaria combined.
Merely to operate this system requires an
army of more than 5,000 girls. Merely to
keep their records requires 235,000,000 sheets
of paper a year. Merely to do the writing of
these records wears away 560,000 lead pencils.
And merely to give these girls a cup of tea
or coffee at noon compels the Bell Company
to buy yearly 6,000 pounds of tea, 17,000
pounds of coffee, 48,000 cans of condensed
milk, and 140 barrels of sugar.
The myriad wires of this New York system
are tingling with talk every minute of the day
and night. They are most at rest between
three and four o'clock in the morning, although
even then there are usually ten calls a minute.
Between 5 and 6 o'clock two thousand New
Yorkers are awake and at the telephone. Half
an hour later, there are twice as many.
Between 7 and 8 o'clock, 25,000 people have
called up 25,000 other people, so that there
are as many people talking by wire as there
were in the whole city of New York in the
Revolutionary period. Even this is only the
dawn of the day's business. By 8.30 it is
doubled; by 9 it is trebled; by 10 it is multi-
plied six-fold; and by 11 o'clock the roar has
become an incredible Babel of 180,000 con-
versations an hour, with fifty new voices
clamoring at the Exchange every second.
This is "the peak of the load." It is the
topmost pinnacle of talk. It is the utmost
degree of service that the telephone has been
required to give in any city. And it is as
much a world's wonder, to men and women of
imagination, as the steel mills of Homestead
or the turbine leviathans that cross the Atlantic
Ocean in four and a half days.
Already this Bell system has grown to be so
vast, so nearly akin to a national nerve system,
that there is nothing else to which we can com-
pare it. It is strung out over 50,000 cities and
communities. And its old-time rival, theWestern
Union, is now its lesser rival and companion.
If it were all gathered together into one
place, this system would make a city of
Telephonia as large as Baltimore. It would
contain half of the telephone property of the
world. Its actual wealth would be fully
$760,000,000, and its revenue would be greater
than the revenue of the City of New York.
Part of the property of the city of Telephonia
consists of 10,000,000 poles — as many as
would make a fence from New York to Cali-
fornia, or put a stockade around Texas. If
the Telephonians wished to use these poles at
home, they might drive them in as piles along
their water-front, and have a 25,000-acre dock;
or, if their city were a hundred square miles in
extent, they might set up a seven-ply wall
around it with these poles.
Wire, too, eleven million miles of it! This
city of Telephonia would be the capital of an
empire of wire. Not all the men in New York
state could shoulder this burden of wire and
carry it. Throw all the people of Illinois in
one end of the scale, and put on the other side
the wire-wealth of Telephonia, and long before
the last coil was in place, the Illinoisians would
be in the air.
What would this city do for a living? It
would make two-thirds of the telephones, cables,
and switchboards of all countries. Nearly one
quarter of its citizens would work in factories,
while the others would be busy in 6,000
Exchanges, making it possible for the people
of the United States to talk to one another
at the rate of seven thousand million conver-
sations a year.
The pay-envelope army that moves to work
every morning in Telephonia would be a host
of 110,000 men and girls, mostly girls — as
many as would fill Vassar College one hundred
times and more. Put these men and girls
in line, march them ten abreast, and six
hours would pass before the last company
would arrive at the reviewing stand. In
single file this throng of Telephonians would
make a living wall from New York to New
Haven.
Such is the extraordinary city of which
Alexander Graham Bell was the only resident
in 1875. It has been built up without the
backing of any great bank or multi-millionaire.
There have been no Vanderbilts in it — no
Astors, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Harrimans.
There are even now only four men who own
as many as 10,000 shares of the stock of the
central company.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
SIXTH ARTICLE
THE FUTURE OF OUR WATERWAYS
HOW THE FREIGHT-CAR SUPERSEDED THE CANAL-BOAT — THE WAY TO
MAKE RIVER TRAFFIC SUCCESSFUL— THE LESSON OF THE GREAT LAKES
BY
JAMES J. HILL
FOR ages the development of every
country was determined by its rivers,
coasts, and harbors. The improve-
ment of these, to fit the needs of commerce,
was a national care. "Internal improve-
ments," in the early history of the United
States, meant just this. The coming of the
railroad pushed the waterway, for a time,
into the background. This was true in the
United States to a degree unparalleled any-
where else in the world, because nowhere
else has it met that need so fully; nowhere
else did it begin with the early life of com-
munities and keep pace with or anticipate
their growth; nowhere else has railroad expan-
sion been marked by such admirable system
and the cost of service been reduced so rapidly
and so far. The improvement of rivers and
harbors went on, it is true, upon a great scale;
but these, after all, were secondary agencies
of CQmmerce. Most of the history of the
development of the United States is written
in the history of its railroad systems.
Recent events have directed attention anew
to the importance of extending and improving
our waterways. Two main reasons appear.
One is the check put upon railroad expansion
by legislation that passes the boundary of
proper regulation and represses legitimate
enterprise. The other is the enormous pres-
sure of traffic upon terminal facilities and trunk-
lines that cannot be duplicated except at
prohibitive cost. The business of the country,
under normal conditions, will have need cf all
its carriers. The public, however, has been
led by visionaries and appropriation hunters
to suppose that waterway improvement and
extension will solve every problem and make
everybody rich and happy. Only after a
disillusioning experience and much waste of
public money will they learn the truth. It is
of the highest importance, therefore, that the
situation should be understood, and that a
true and permanent theory of the function of
waterways and the steps which the people
ought to take to utilize them more fully, should
be generally known and accepted.
It will clear the ground for this if a few
widely prevalent errors are disposed of first.
The foremost and most persistent of these
is the idea that the railroad and the waterway
are antagonistic, and that either can gain
business only at the expense of the other. It
has actually been proposed in Congress to
forbid railroads to reduce their rates when
competing with water-routes. But there is
nowhere any evidence of an unfriendly dis-
position on the part of railways toward water
transportation. There is no rivalry for an
exclusive service. Each is fitted for a par-
ticular office in transportation. In any well-
ordered national system they will supplement
each other. For reasons just stated, the
railroad has developed more rapidly in this
country from economic causes solely, as is
proved by results wherever the two come into
actual competition. Some of the facts about
the division of transportation work in America
between river and rail are interesting.
The trunk-lines between Chicago and New
York were built and have created their enor-
mous traffic subject, from the beginning, to the
competition of the Erie Canal. It had occu-
pied the field before there was a mile of railroad
anywhere in the United States. St. Louis has
become one of the important centres of the
12780
HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE RAILROADS
The great river which brought nearly $80,000,000 worth of traffic
to New Orleans in 1855-56, and the railroads which paralleled it and
have taken all but $3,000,000 worth of the trade from the river. The
black lines are the levees and the shaded area represents the land
overflowed since 1897
country's railroad business, while all the time
the Mississippi was at her service. On the
Ohio is some of the cheapest water carriage
in the country. Its cost in 1905 is reported
as .76 of one mill per ton per mile for moving
freight by river from Pittsburgh to Louisville,
and .67 of one mill from Louis^dlle to New
Orleans; but these rates, though frequently
quoted, have not been verified. It is also
said that rates much lower than these have
been made on barge tows during the season.
But the quotation of a single rate is meaning-
less unless we know whether it covers the cost
of the return trip, its due share of the whole
season's necessary outlay, and of all the ex-
penses that must be met by any carrier forming
part of the transportation system of the country
and assuming to regulate its charges. Here,
however, is a cheap and convenient route by
which the coal of Pennsylvania and Ohio
may be moved to the factories of the lower
river. Coal can be shipped profitably by
water, if anything can. What is the fact?
Of a total of 8,743,047 tons of coal received
at St. Louis in 1897, just 155,470 tons were
carried by boat. A large part of this came
from local mines. Every pound of the
1,155,645 tons shipped out went by rail. And
of all the commodities received at and shipped
from that city, amounting in 1907 to nearly
48,000,000 tons, only 368,075 tons, or less
than .79 of 1 per cent., were brought in or
sent out by water.
The chairman of the freight committee of
the New Orleans Board of Trade says in his
official report:
"It is a well-known fact that the steamboats
plying out of this port find a number of prominent
railroad competitive points on their route. It is
also, we regret to say, a positive fact that our boats
are accorded but little business shipping out of
this city to said points. Practically the only out-
bound freights that are shipped on the boats are
such as cannot be delivered by a railroad."
Galveston, with no such waterway from the
interior at her doors, exported 14,172,071
bushels of wheat in 1907, as against 5,496,935
for New Orleans. Up to this time the river
has been unable to compete with the railroad.
In the year 1855-56 the domestic exports
from New Orleans amounted to $80,000,000
and were practically all carried by water. Not
in recent times has the commerce of the lower
river reached $3,000,000, although the total
imports and exports of New Orleans in 1907 were
more than $200,000,000. These figures expose
the absurdity of the theory that the railroad
need feel either jealousy or fear of the water-
way.
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The two systems of carriage have developed ing 1906 was 13.41 mills, while the average rate in
together effectively in many European coun- the United States was but 7.48 mills. Unlike the
tries; and errors are constantly made in our railroads of Europe, those of this country compete
current discussion by drawing an analogy vigorously with the water carriers for even the .
that fails in essential particulars. In such lowest kmds of traffic. The average rate on coal
countries conditions differ from those in the £fh±fa ^"2? JT^,""1 ET^*°
TT .. , ex . . , „ . , . . Railways m 1906 was 9.79 mills; on the Chesa-
United States in two aU-important respects: ^ & Qhio Rai, \£n but ^ »
first, their railroad freight-rates are so much
higher than ours that a cheaper mode of And not only are European freight-rates
transportation must be provided or certain from tw0 t0 f°ur times as great as ours, but
kinds of freight could not be carried at all; even their boasted canals are also more expen-
second, necessary facilities for water shipments, sive highways. The following table is compiled
such as modern barges, commodious and by Dr. Tunell from official documents:
convenient wharves, and loading and unload- American and European freight-rates
ing appliances are provided so abundantly Rate per Rate per
that water carriage loses the element of uncer- ***** MUes b**™ Ton
tainty and delay which has helped to reduce Buffalo to N.Y. by Canal . 500 $.0400 $1.33
it to a negligible quantity on most American ?u?al° t(\N- J* \ Railu ■ 4» .0427 1 .42
rivers Antwerp to Strasburg by
A recent consular report to our State Depart- An\ * 'to 'strksburg' by S°X '°475 * *58
ment concludes with these fervid periods: French Canals . . . 504 .0693 2 .31
"The United States could, perhaps, reach no ~ , . A, . . r
more practical result nor one of possibly greater u One begins to perceive through these figures
advantage to its enormous producing interests than that ™e relative fortunes of the two trans-
by turning its attention in the direction of the portation agencies in the United States in the
improvement and development of its waterways, past are not without an economic explanation.
The mileage of the inland waterways of Germany, The American waterway, under conditions
if possessed by the United States in proportion to existing here, and relying upon rate competi-
our area as compared to that of Germany, would tion to maintain itself against the railroad,
be equivalent in linear measurement to 40 parallel has not been a success. Its charge has not
£^?£iR^£S£££ *~r? T-* «*- *• •*■*■■- -
from Canada to the Gulf; and that would mean a sPee? 3nd ******* m . delivery. The Erie
network of canals for a state like Ohio, say, running canal, once of great practical value as a earner,
east and west and north and south, which would be has become of late years, as a competitor with
something like 40 miles apart from boundary to the railroads, comparatively unimportant. In
boundary in all four directions. With this in view, June, 1908, New York City received 1,690,075
the importance of Germany's waterways may be bushels of grain by the all-fail route, 1,133,900
properly appreciated by the American student of bushels by lake and rail and 725,400 bushels
this subject." by canal. For the six months ending June
This half-baked stuff is a type of much 30, 1908, the all-rail route carried to New York
that has been written and spoken in this 32,489,837 bushels of grain and flour, the
country on waterway improvement. The lake and rail 8,069,466 bushels, and the canal
waterway is to be the saviour of the producer, but 1,469,100 bushels. Yet the rates between
as against the railroad. Yet most German New York and Chicago on which east and
railroads are state-owned; and waterways are west business has been thus divided were
resorted to there as an escape from the intoler- recently as follows:
able burden of the rates the railroads impose.
There is more freight traffic on the Rhine ^ LAKE' AND ^^ RATES TO NEW YORK
than on any other stream in Europe. Many sTSSd c£!d
of the rivers of that country carry tons where _,. A"'RaU ****** J**<
ours carry pounds Why ? Dr George G. fSLddi- ! \ \ \ %% %% 3?
Tunell, in a recent report to the Chicago Third dass * £ |
Harbor Commission, says: Fourth class 35 .30 .'23
"The average freight rate per ton per mile on the Fifth class .... .30 .25 .21
United Prussian and Hessian State railroads dur- Sixth class 2c .21 .18
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It will be worth the reader's while to com-
pare these rates with those just given on
German railroads and waterways, reducing
»both to a mileage basis. He should also
appreciate the concise and accurate conclusion
of this phase of the subject as stated by Dr.
Tunell:
"The all-rail rates are higher than the lake-and-
rail and the lake-and-canal only as 40-cent coffee
may be higher than 30 or 20-cent coffee, or as
rates and fares over a standard rail line may be
higher than those over a differential rail line. And
it is equally true, historically speaking, that rail
rates have been as influential in bringing down
water rates as the latter have been in reducing the
former."
It has been made clear that the main reason
for the comparative neglect to utilize water-
ways in this country is the more desirable
service, in kind or cost or both, rendered by
the railroads. A secondary reason is the
failure of cities and business associations to
provide the accessories without which river
transportation is commercially unavailable.
There is constant demand in the United States
for deeper channels, big dams, every form of
improvement that, at the cost of millions paid
by taxation, will help to provide water of navi-
gable depth. But the landing-places, con-
nections, dock facilities, and the boats in
service on our streams are just about what they
were fifty years ago. For stating the case in
a nutshell, it would be hard to improve upon
the following, printed in a Cincinnati publica-
tion, which advocated at the same time the
most liberal expenditure on our waterways:
"When I asked a river man, a large shipper, in
one of the towns depending wholly on the river,
what he thought of the nine-foot stage, he said,
'I wish the Ohio river would dry up; then we
would get the railroad in here and our troubles
would be over., This man is a large shipper of
baled hay, cattle, and produce for the Cincinnati
markets, just the sort of freight which ought to
go by river.
"The river has 'got on his nerves.' His
1 troubles ' are an indictment of the river as a high-
way of commerce, and they sum up pretty well the
whole problem from the standpoint of the river
town.
" 'For shipping hay, hogs, cattle, etc.,' said he,
'the railroad is better than the river. Take the
shipment of a drove of hogs; we drive them down
to the river from the yards to await the arrival
of the boat, the drivers yelling and the hogs squeal-
ing; the bank is steep, oftentimes muddy; there
are no yards or conveniences because of the rise
and fall of the water; the arrival of the boat is
uncertain; if it is on time it comes about dusk, and
there is the trouble of getting the animals on board.
Then there is the night on the boat — dock scene
repeated in Cincinnati — then through the crowded
streets to the city stockyards. Compare with die
railroad: you order a stock-car to your yard; load
at your leisure; the car is run direct to the stock-
yards in the city, and you have no trouble at all.
The present boat line is a monopoly and charges
what it pleases, so there is but little difference in
the freight rate.' "
The proof that the railroad and the water-
way are complementary rather than mutually
destructive in every well-organized traffic
movement is even more decisive when we turn
from the waterways that are comparatively
little used to one that is a marvelous success
as a carrier. The total arrivals and clearances
of ships at all ports on the Great Lakes in
1907 were 147,904 and their cargoes amounted
to only a little less than 200,000,000 net tons.
The volume of commerce grows steadily,
when not halted by general business depression.
The total freight passed through the "Soo"
canals in 1907 was over 58,000,000 tons. The
tonnage passing through the Suez Canal in
the same year was but 14,728,434. The ore
alone carried by the lake route in 1907
amounted to over 900 pounds for every man,
woman, and child in the United States.
Twenty years ago Duluth was a little town
with only a promising local trade. To-day
it is one of the great shipping ports of the world,
with unlimited possibilities of expansion.
The following table gives a basis of compari-
son of the lake traffic with that of the great
ports of the world:
THE TONNAGE OF LAKE AND OCEAN PORTS
Tonnage
New York, 1905 30,314,062
Chicago, 1906 15,638,051
Liverpool and Birkenhead, 1906 . 16,147,856
London, 1905 25,867,485
Duluth and Superior, 1907 . . . 34,786,705
But while the phenomenal growth of lake
business and the reduction in the rate, which
was 22.36 cents per bushel by lake and canal
from Chicago to New York in 1867, ^d 6.64
cents in 1907, have taken place practically
within the last twenty-five years, the railroads
running west and northwest from Buffalo
and Chicago have not suffered. On the con-
trary, traffic in this territory has increased
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with amazing rapidity; and the capacity of
these railroads is taxed to handle business that
cannot or will not use other routes.
The growth of traffic in the United States
has exceeded the growth of facilities for
carrying it. The transportation deficit will
presently become so great, when business
is free to grow unhindered by repressive
legislation, that no amount of capital available
for new construction or for extensions and
improvements could make it good. It will
also be shown there that one of the most
serious causes of congestion — the inadequacy
of terminal facilities in the large centres —
cannot be removed by any expenditure. The
necessary ground cannot be secured. This
problem of terminals at every busy port affects
the waterway as well as the railway. Ships
must be loaded and unloaded promptly or
paid for delay, since fixed expenses continue
to accrue. The growth and the cheapness of
traffic on the Great Lakes are due in no small
degree to the effectiveness of terminal machin-
ery at their head. Duluth and Superior
handled more tons in 1907 than any other
seaport, and it was all carried into or taken out
of the port by a few railways. These cities
have less than 300 miles of terminal track, as
against 2,000 miles at Buffalo. But at Duluth-
Superior a cargo of 12,000 tons of ore can be
loaded in an hour and a half. So much better
are terminal facilities at the head of the lakes
than elsewhere that they handle in seven and
a half months of open navigation more business
than any other port in the world handles in
twelve, and do it more satisfactorily.
The traffic of the country needs, whenever
normal conditions prevail, all the assistance
that waterways can give. Their services are
immediately important in two ways: first, to
afford a larger number of distributing points,
so that the piling up of freight in terminals
may be relieved; second, to transport the
bulkier and cheaper commodities, that can
as well take a slower and cheaper route, over
the main trunk-lines of transportation in the
country, thus lightening the burden that must,
with industrial development, become too heavy
for the railroads to bear unaided. How
severe this pressure is may best be seen by
looking quantitatively at the producing power
of the Middle West — rich, busy, and so situated
that both what it sells and what it buys must
be carried over long distances. The twelve
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South
Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri
contain more than half the farm-property
value of the United States. They have about
one-fourth of the total area of the country and
one-third of its population. In agriculture
they are as important as all the rest of the
country combined. In 1908 these twelve
states raised 456,521,000 bushels of wheat, or
69 per cent, of the total yield: 1,644,649,000
bushels of corn, or 61.6 per cent, of the entire
crop; 608,237,000 bushels of oats, or 75.5 per
cent, of the whole, and 144,289,000 bushels
of rye and barley, or 72.6 per cent, of the total
crop. Their production of butter, cheese,
potatoes, hay, etc., is about one-half that
of the whole country. They raise practically
all its flax, and the aggregate of their farm
products is not far from half that of the United
States.
From these fertile lands comes the surplus
breadstuff product that constitutes the bulk of
the real wealth of the country. They are now
only partially occupied and carelessly tilled.
The time is coming when their product must
be made twice or fourfold what it is to-day.
Even omitting their mineral wealth and their
manufactured product, the latter being about
one-third that of the country, and not con-
sidering their domestic commerce, which
alone would tax their transportation facilities,
the getting of these food supplies out of the
central basin and to their ultimate markets
is essential to our economic welfare.
. Not all the commerce of the interior seeks
a Southern seaport. Half of Ohio, much of
Michigan, and parts of Wisconsin and the
Northwest are more directly tributary to the
Great Lakes. But this subtraction will be
more than made good by river business origin-
ating in states south of the twelve named. The
cotton crop is to the South what the grain crop
is to the North. In 1908, the states of Arkansas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri,
Texas, and Oklahoma produced 8,016,914
bales. Oklahoma alone grew 15,625,000
bushels of wheat in 1908. Nearly all this
product is exported, and this adds more ton-
nage to the lower basin than is diverted to the
lakes in the upper/
In one respect, however, the traffic load
promises to grow lighter. The great reduc-
tion in the volume of our exports of agricul-
tural products will soon leave little of this
business, to which the waterway is well adapted,
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for it to carry. In New Orleans and Galveston
grain elevators have been standing empty for
some years because of this decline in our
exports of breadstuffs. The average annual
export of domestic wheat and flour for the five
years 1 905-1909 was 113,146,896 bushels; for
the five years 1880-1884, twenty-five years
earlier, it was 149,572,716 bushels. The fall-
ing off is nearly 25 per cent. Within a very
few years our increase of population, with
continual lowering of soil fertility, must make
our entire product insufficient for home con-
sumption and seed. This decrease, which will
affect more or less seriously all the items of our
present export of articles of food, both vegetable
and animal, will tend to lessen somewhat the
strain upon both land and water-transportation
agencies.
Nature indicates that the commerce of the
Middle West with the rest of the world should
be carried in part by the Mississippi River. In
the last forty years we have spent $250,000,000
on it and its more important tributaries with-
out making progress toward that end. Instead,
the trend of traffic is away from the river.
DECLINE IN SHIPPING AT ST. LOUIS
1888 1907 1888 1908
Arrivals Departures
Number . 3,323 1,330 2,076 931
Tonnage *597>955 289,575 510,815 78,500
♦Exclusive of lumber and logs.
On many of the rivers and canals of the
country where conditions ought to be most
favorable, there is a similar steady decline of
water-borne freight. And the movement to
revive water traffic does not state clearly either
its end or the means by which this may be
reached.
That end, as we have seen, is to perform
two extremely valuable transportation services:
to carry heavy and bulky articles, where no
haste in delivery is required, and a low rate
must be made to move them; and to share with
the railroads the burden of moving a volume
of domestic commerce that will soon tax all
resources. In the long run, transportation
adopts the line. of least resistance. The rivers
mark the direction. Just as the drainage of
the Central West is gathered into the Missis-
sippi and passes by it to the Gulf, so that por-
tion of its commerce which is made up of
articles of large bulk and weight will move
naturally in this direction when the outlet is
made practically available. The congestion of
a steadily increasing traffic will be relieved by
turning a share of the business over to the
tow-boat and the barge. Here lies the solu-
tion of an important part of the transportation
problem.
Our waterways will not resume their proper
place and office by following the theory that,
if we only spend money enough, we can some-
how obtain results. We need a systematic
and scientific plan. We have spent enormous
sums in the past without appreciable results,
except on our ocean and lake harbors. We
must work to a definite end; and our method
must be prescribed by the past experience of
our own and other countries.
In the first place, waterways that are to play
an important part in traffic must be deep
waterways. That point cannot be emphasized
too strongly. A vessel that carries only 1,000
tons cannot compete with a box-car. With a
steamer carrying 10,000 tons you have it
beaten. This is the key to the only growth of
water-borne traffic that has taken place in our
interior commerce. Twenty years ago the
largest carriers on the Lakes that could pass
through the old " Soo" Canal, with its fourteen-
foot locks, were of about 3,000 tons. The
canal was deepened to twenty-one feet, and
now an ordinary load is 10,000 to 12,000 tons.
This explains the wonderful growth of lake
commerce already referred to. The differ-
ence in cost between the operation of a boat
of 3,000 and one of 12,000 tons is only so much
as will cover the employment of two extra
firemen, two more deck-hands, and the purchase
of about ten tons of coal additional per day -=-
in all, some $28. At this slight extra expense
the carrying power is quadrupled. Hence the
phenomenal expansion of lake commerce within
the last twenty years, while this change in its
carrying machinery took place. The fact
establishes the sound law of all waterway
development. It has been well stated by
Dr. Ramsdell:
"The ocean rates to-day on the immense steamers
plying at our great harbors, which have been
deepened to thirty and more feet, are from one-
third to one-fourth the rates of twenty-five years
ago, when steamers drew only twenty-two or
twenty-three feet; and this saving of 300 to 400
per cent, in transportation charges is directly due
to the improvement of their harbors."
These results, however, have been obtained
not by the mere spending of money, but by
spending it in the right way. We must spend
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
it in the right way on our navigable streams
and our canals. The starting-point for a sys-
tem of deep waterways in this country is a
working plan. The nation has wasted its
resources and obtained little return, so far as
our rivers are concerned, because its methods
have been aimless. The amount and the
assignment of appropriations have been and
still are determined too much by political
influence and local greed, regardless of the
merits of the work in question. Thus labor
and resources are dissipated in schemes of little
value, or actually thrown away. More than
thirty years ago Congress adopted a plan for
slack-water navigation on the Ohio River, and
at the rate the work has proceeded it may be
completed in 150 years. We have not a deep
river channel in the United States, made such
by Federal improvements, except where jetties
have scoured out passes to the sea.
Waterways should be created as other great
physical enterprises are. The first railroads
did not begin in the heart of the country
and run vaguely anywhere. They were lines
between important centres and terminal points;
and extensions, branches, and feeders were
added as needed. Waterway improvements
should be similarly planned. Locate the trunk-
lines first. Open a way to the sea by the big-
gest, freest, most available outlet. Push the
work as nature directs, from the sea-coast up
the rivers. All this should be part of a general
scheme of coordinated improvement and con-
servation of resources; including reservoirs
on the headwaters of the main stream and as
many of its tributaries as may be necessary to
prevent floods and maintain a deep channel
in the dry season, river canalization or canal
construction parallel to its course, and the
maintenance of a sufficient and permanent
channel for boats of the largest size during the
season of navigation.
The lower Mississippi, from New Orleans
to St. Louis, has precedence, and a deep-water
connection with the Great Lakes should come
next. It is as important that the order of these
improvements be not reversed as it is that you
do not set the water running in your bathroom
before you have provided an escape-pipe with
a free outlet. A^/ar up as Vicksburg there
is now a channel |qual to any demand that
commerce might piy.: upon it. The cost of
dredging a canal down the Mississippi bot-
toms, putting in the twenty-five to thirty
necessary locks and obtaining rights of way,
might possibly amount to $75,000,000. If
we can spend hundreds of millions on the
Panama Canal, we can afford to construct
one from St. Louis to the Gulf, which
would be incomparably more valuable to
commerce. It has been estimated that this
would give a fourteen-foot channel in two or
three years, and reduce the cost of maintaining
unobstructed navigation in the lower river
from $10,000,000 a year to less than $1,500,000.
A twenty-foot channel would be worth three
times as much. Just as the vessel-load in-
creased from 3,000 to 10,000 or 12,000 tons
when the "Soo" Canal was deepened, so will
the carrying capacity of the river channel
be multiplied by increasing the depth.
For east-and-west business we have already
the Great Lakes; which must be supplemented
by a true deep waterway along the line of the
Erie Canal, instead of the commercially value-
less ditch into which the people of New York
State are now dumping another $100,000,000,
principally for the benefit of politicians and
contractors.
Everywhere else, in Europe, even in South
America, they are building their canals and
dredging their rivers for channels from twenty
to thirty feet deep. Canada, always in advance
of us in canal construction, has learned the
lesson from her disappointment with the Wel-
land system, although that has fourteen feet
She is now planning the Georgian Bay Canal,
to be made twenty-one feet deep throughout.
Should that be finished, Liverpool would be
little more than a hundred miles nearer to
New York than to the Canadian shore of Lake
Huron. These two main water - highways,
stretching toward the four points of the com-
pass, should for a time command all the energy
and all the resources we have to give to water-
way improvement. Subsidiary projects should
take later place according to their relative im-
portance, unless there is enough local interest
and financial support to push them without
calling on the Federal government for aid.
The fatal objection to most of the waterway
programmes is that they aim to cover the whole
country at once; they cater to the greed of every
section and every state by projecting a cobweb
of nine-foot, six-foot, and even four-foot chan-
nels, whose construction is supposed to go for-
ward simultaneously, and most of which would
be valueless to commerce if they were finished
and presented to the public free of cost.
Instead of this, the work must be done methodi-
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12787
cally, in the order of the value of its parts. It
will not be thus systematized until it is placed
in charge of a central commission, created and
invested by Federal statute with authority to
select, plan, contract for, and construct water-
way improvements. It must be permitted to
use annual appropriations according to its
judgment, and transform our system into a
scientific method, before we can rescue our
waterway interests from the vicious circle of
log-rolling appropriations.
The question how and to what extent money
process indefinitely. Others have proposed
lump appropriations ranging from $500,000,000
to $1,000,000,000, the money to be obtained by
bond issues to that amount; claiming that the
value of the work justifies borrowing and that
it will repay expenditures many times over.
Against such wild schemes for blood-letting of
the public credit every good citizen should
protest.
On the alleged saving in freight rates we
have not only the ample statistics already
cited, but the testimony of an official expert.
I ilMUi
' -i^!
• L
PK5T ^
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V*fS
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Copyright, 1908, by T. W. lngeraoU, St. Paul, Minn.
THE RAILROADS AND STEAMBOATS AT ST. PAUL
The river traffic reached its climax in 1872; the rail traffic has continued to increase. The waterways can be made
to do their share of carrying again if properly developed on a comprehensive plan based on traffic conditions and carried
out systematically by a permanent commission
shall be provided touches the vital nerve-centre
of any large enterprise and the danger point of
this. Some enthusiasts urge that the national
credit be pledged in practically ^u^imited
amounts in order that we ma^ trjjrto do every-
thing instantly, before we are actually ready
to do anything. It is a reckless, foolish and
criminal policy. One bill before Congress
recently proposed to appropriate at once
$50,000,000 for the work, and authorized the
President, whenever the funds in hand fell
below $20,000,000, to sell bonds enough to raise
them to $50,000,000 again, and to repeat this
Mr. Ray S. Reid, Waterways Commissioner
of Wisconsin, investigated personally both the
waterways and* the charges of Europe as well
as of this country and reported the results
to the legislature of his state. He found the
larger use of rivers in Europe made possible
not by spending large sums upon them, but
by devising craft to use them as they are.
Here are his most important conclusions,
stated in the words of his official report:
" If modern methods of op ation were put in use
on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, such
rivers can be made the most economical means of
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THE ERIE CANAL AN OBSOLETE COMMON-CARRIER
Which in the early days built up the port of New York, but which has since been superseded by the railroads
transportation, in their present condition, that can
be found within the borders of the United States.
" Every railroad is entitled to a rate that will pay
a reasonable profit, and every dollar of profit taken
from a railroad by water transportation must
necessarily be added to the tonnage actually carried
by it, and it follows that every ton of freight that
is carried by water transportation at a cost exceed-
ing that of transportation by rail is a loss to the
public.
" If there is a canal anywhere on which the pro
rata cost per ton per mile, on all tonnage carried
over it, would not be greater than the amount it
would cost an American railroad to carry it, if
4 per cent, interest on the cost of construction
and the cost of operating and maintaining the
canal were distributed over its tonnage, I would
like to know where it is, so that I could Visit it and
see how it is done.,,
In the movement for the conservation of our
resources that has lately assumed such large
proportions, one resource, among the mightiest,
has not been included because it is not material,
but intangible. I refer to the national credit;
that potent force to which we must appeal in
times of war or other great crises, and which
should be reserved for issues of national life
A NEW YORK CENTRAL FREIGHT-TRAIN — THE CANAL BOAT'S SUCCESSOR
In the first si* months of 1908 New York received 32,489,837 bushels of flour and grain by the all-rail route, 8,069,466
bushels by lake and rail, and only 1,469,100 bushels by canal
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12789
ONE OF THE GOVERNMENT LOCKS ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI
There are now few steamboats on the river above Cairo. The traffic is chiefly in logs, lumber, and cross-ties — mostly
floated and rafted
and death. This should be guarded with
the most jealous care: first, because of its
relation to national existence and, second,
because we can never know in advance where
exhaustion begins. The earth and its products
tell us plainly about what we may expect
from them in the future; but credit is
apparently unlimited at one moment and in
collapse the next. The only safe rule is to
place no burdens upon it that may be avoided;
to save it for days of dire need.
The country is perfectly able to provide
each year all the funds that can be spent
wisely on its waterways in that year and
bring in value received. This is its only
security against the waste of public resources
common to all liberal drafts upon the pub-
lic credit.
The future of the waterway as a factor in
transportation can be injured only by some
such folly as the proposed issue of bonds for
its improvement. The essentials for developing
A GOVERNMENT DREDGE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
Already, under the river improvement policy which has been followed, $208,484,720 has been spent upon the rivers
of the Mississippi Valley (partly dredging and partly levee work) above New Orleans — $97,685,920 for the Mississippi
itself and $25,340,547 for the Ohio. Yet the traffic on the Mississippi has declined from 29,401,400 tons in 1889 to
27>856,6"4i tons in 1906
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
DOCK I v IIJTIKS WHICH RAVE MADE THE GREAT LAKE TRAFFIC
pe a 12,000-ton cargo of ore can be toadied in an hour anil a half. The amount of water traffic at Duluth
rior is tbOUt the same as that of New York and a little more than the vvntcr tr, ndon
THE KIND OF LOADING FACILITIES WHICH DISCOURAGES RIVER TRANSPORTATION
Cumberland River steamers at the "wharves" at Nashville, Tenn, From here dnwn, the river is navigaHe 1
months, and for boats drawing not over three feet for eight months
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HIGHWAYS OF PROGRESS
12791
its highest possibilities are few and simple.
For the sake of clearness it may be weU to
repeat them:
First: A permanent commission, authorized
to expend appropriations in its discretion upon
national waterways in the order of their
importance.
Second: A comprehensive plan, including
the classification of rivers and canal routes
according to relative value, and also including
such reservoir and slack-water work as may
be required to carry each project to success.
This plan in its essentials to be adopted by
nation's credit for a single dollar of this, which
is properly our work.
To favor and to labor for such a system,
even though it should demand local self-
sacrifice and the postponement of local desire,
is the duty of all of us as good citizens and
honest business men. Railroad and waterway,
needing each other and both needed by the
people, may work together for the good of the
people. The transportation problem, which
grows and complicates with our growth and
with every artificial restriction imposed upon
it, may be solved by intelligent anticipation.
THE "SOO" CANAL AND THE SHIPS THAT MAKE IT SUCCESSFUL
A 1,000-ton boat cannot compete with a box-car; a 10,000-ton ship can. The 21 -foot depth of the "Soo" Canal which
allows the passage of 12,000-ton ships, explains why this canal is one of the great waterways of the world
the commission at the outset and adhered
to without interference by Congress or any
department.
Third: Insistence upon the development
of trunk lines first, and upon a depth that will
make these real carriers of commerce, able
to aid the railroads in their task by trans-
porting bulky freight economically and with
reasonable expedition.
Fourth: A liberal standing appropriation
annually for the commission's work until its
plans shall have been carried out over the
whole country; and a refusal to pledge the
A deep waterway movement that shall set
for itself this standard will command the
support of the people by commending itself
to their judgment instead of their greed. It
will get rid of local log-rolling and all the brood
of those who are "for the old flag and an
appropriation." It will complete and make
adequate to future needs the whole system
of transportation by land and water in the
United States. It will place those who suc-
ceed in popularizing and establishing it among
the most far-sighted statesmen and benefac-
tors of their timet
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THE PROPOSED EASTERN FACADE OF THE CITY, ON MICHIGAN AVENUE
Copyright. 1909, by Commercial Club, Chicago
CHICAGO-ITS STRUGGLE AND
ITS DREAM
A STORY OF PARADOX AND CONTRAST IN A CITY'S LIFE— THE
DRAMATIC STRESS OF CONFLICT BETWEEN REALITY AND VISION
BY
WILLIAM BAYARD HALE
THE richest ward in the city which
expects to be the greatest in the
world is still represented in the
Board of Aldermen by "Hinky Dink" and
"Bath-house John" — but Chicago is on the
highway of reform. The Mayor, a gentle-
man of previous repute for easy virtue but
rugged honesty, elected by a combination of
bums, vice-purveyors, and conservative busi-
ness men, in a wave of respectable indigna-
tion against the Socialistic tendencies of his
predecessor, is being revealed as the centre
of the most greedy system of graft ever
organized by a mob of grab-all crooks. His
appointees, inducted into office with loud
heraldings of the advent of an efficient
business administration, are - facing jail
for larceny — but Chicago is conscious of
nothing more than of the strength of its
civic ideals.
The streets are torn up in every direction.
The crossings are like crossings of the Alps.
In the heart of the city you tramp whole blocks
over piles of cobble-stones and sand. The
traffic regulations are primitive. The smoke
nuisance, unabated after twenty years of
agitation, turns an atmosphere as pure as
that of Italy into one as turgid as that of
London. Twenty-five hundred illegal resorts
flourish unmolested; four districts glitter with
red lights and resound with music — but
Chicago is resolved to lead the way in muni-
cipal efficiency and righteousness, and is
dreaming a great dream of a City Beautiful
which St. Augustine might have preferred to
his own inspired vision of the New Jerusalem.
The metropolis of interior America is on
the crest of an inspirational movement. .
It really is. However easy it may be to
make satirical epigrams on the phenomenon,
the phenomenon is actual. It is a phenome-
non which lends itself to satire, a phenomenon
full of ironical contradictions, of amusing
paradoxes, puzzling facts.
But so is life, generally. Life doesn't
follow an orderly and passionless course;
life seldom takes the pains to be consistent;
it is too busy to be rational. Everywhere
nature works through contending forces.
Nothing moves unhindered in any direction.
Character is a mixed thing, the resultant of
opposite impulses.
If there is to-day anything living on this
continent, it is Chicago. Chicago, there-
fore, is as full of contradictions as is life itself.
Chicago doesn't lend itself to complacent
description. Look at it here, and you con-
clude that it is wholly materialistic, vulgar,
corrupt, and hopeless. Regard it there, and
you are inclined to the opposite opinion. Get
away and take a bird's-eye view of it, and you
may be able to reconcile the contradictions
in a larger estimate.
Interesting as the character of a city so
alive must be at any time to the eye of the
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Copyright, 1909, by Commercial Club of Chicago
PROPOSED BOULEVARD TO CONNECT THE NORTH AND SOUTH SIDES OF THE RIVER
View looking north from Washington Street
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CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
observer, Chicago is at this moment par-
ticularly so.
Two contrasting facts just now stand out
in striking relief: the conception of a magnifi-
cent City Plan, and the exposure of the cor-
ruption of the city administration.
It is almost a pity to mention the Plan of
Chicago unless one has the opportunity to
talk for hours. It is possible here only to
give a hint of a scheme which glows with
sky-line of individual fronts will give way to
uniform blocks, lining like palaces the tree-
bordered thoroughfares.
The banks of the rivers will be converted
into boulevards, and the streams crossed by
monumental bridges. The entire stretch of
the lake-front will be appropriated for an
immense park; lagoons will break into it,
artificial islands shelter it and form harbors
for pleasure yachts.
the ambition to transform at one stroke a
sprawling, vulgar town into a more lovely
Paris.
Chicago will be opened up, as Haussmann
opened up Paris, with great avenues stretch-
ing diagonally across its present checker-
board plan and connecting quarter with
quarter in the shortest direct lines. The
freight stations and railroad yards will be
banished from the centre of the city, and a
great area thus be restored to business where it
is most needed. Car lines will be re-arranged.
Plazas and star-places will break up the
monotony of rectangular streets. The ragged
MICHIGAN BOULEVARD
The only really fine street that Chicago now
possesses, Michigan Avenue on the lake-front,
will be widened and extended northward as
an elevated boulevard crossing east and west
streets on viaducts, leaping the river on a
double-deck bridge, and forming the chief
thoroughfare between the North and South
Sides.
East and West Sides will be brought together
by an avenue three hundred feet wide. Where
this avenue, now Congress Street, starts from
Michigan Avenue on the lake-front, there will
rise a group of buildings devoted to the arts
and sciences.
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CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
12795
From this Centre of Culture the eye will
travel down the new Congress Avenue two
miles to Halstead Street (now a slovenly
shanty-town road, but destined to be a splendid
boulevard) where there will lift itself to domin-
ation of the whole city and of miles of out-
stretching prairie the great dome and the
clustering towers of a Civic Centre.
Finally, around all will stretch a forest
preserve, in a green crescent of one hun-
dred miles, its tips on the lake shore.
Through this forest will break highways
into the country, and in particular a speed-
way following the lake shore from Indiana
to Wisconsin.
Not since confusion of tongues struck the
toilers on the too-ambitious walls rising in the
plain of Shinar have men planned a city like this.
that, being a plan for their city, the citizens
would like to see it. I daresay they would.
The lovely pictures by Jules Guerin and
Fernand Janin, reproduced in the volume,
were exhibited at the Art Institute in a room
arranged and lighted with much ingenuity and
taste. Recently they have been exhibited
in Boston, where they attracted flattering
attention. But it cannot be said that one per
cent, of the people of Chicago have any
idea of the glorious things that have been
planned for them.
However, the Mayor has appointed a
Commission to take the plan under its pro-
tection. Those sincerely interested in the
improvement of Chicago do not like the
personnel of the Commission — there are too
many politicians in it. Still less do they like
AS IT IS TO-DAY
Copyright, 1909, by MofTett Studio, Chicago
It is indeed a splendid plan. You may
learn about it in the fine offices of Mr. Daniel
H. Burnham, the architect, at the top of the
Railroad Exchange Building, if you possess
the influence necessary to admit you to those
elevated precincts. You may read about it
in a volume engraved and printed (not pub-
lished) for the Commercial Club of Chicago,
if you are so fortunate as to possess one of the
1,650 numbered copies distributed among the
elect. It is a splendid book, which cost at
least $80,000 to prepare.
Unfortunately, the people of Chicago haven't
seen the splendid book. It might be supposed
its Executive Committee — in which the poli-
tician element is still more disproportionately
strong. Undoubtedly Bath-House John Cough-
lin and Johnnie Powers are distinguished citi-
zens of Chicago, yet it would seem as if the
particular abilities of these captains of barrel-
house bums would add little to the development
of the more beautiful Chicago of the future.
The gentlemen who so generously worked
out the plan are in no way responsible for the
fact that the politicians have got hold of it
for their own purposes. Unfortunate as this
circumstance is, it is not this alone that has
prevented the popularity of the scheme.
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CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
There can be no denying that by the masses
it is regarded as a rich man's plan. It is
believed to be too much concerned with boule-
vards for automobilists, with views and vistas,
and too little with the practical and immediate
amelioration of existing conditions. "I should
be more interested in a plan that got the water
out of my cellar and allowed my kids to get
to school without having to play tag with
trolley cars across two torn-up streets,,, was
the way one critic put it to me. "Labor"
means much in Chicago. It is unfortunate
that "Labor" was given but one representative
dents, makers of clothing and furniture and
sausages — such are the men who conceived
this thing. Yet it is purely and simply a plan
for a City Beautiful. The generally practical
men who father it will resent the suggestion,
but it is clear that aesthetic and not practical
considerations determined their plan from
first to last. There is some talk of utility
and increased efficiency, but nothing has
really held the designers' mind except possibil-
ities of achieving beauty.
The probability is that the Plan will find its
chief office in the awakening of public senti-
CHICAGO'S LAKE-FRONT, AS IT IS TO-DAY
on the Plan Committee — John Fitzpatrick.
Mr. Fitzpatrick declined to serve, for reasons
substantially given above, but more pictur-
esquely stated by Fitzpatrick.
One need not close one's eyes to the short-
comings of the plan to recognize its importance
and interest.
It is especially notable in that it is the scheme,
not of poets and professional builders of
Utopias, but of an association of business
men, and they citizens of the particular city
of all the world which is regarded as most
practical, hustling, utilitarian, if not utterly
sordid. Merchants, bankers, railroad presi-
ment throughout the whole population of
Chicago to the possibility of making the city
orderly and beautiful. The life of the metrop-
olis is bound to be tremendously influenced
by the fact that several hundreds of its leading
citizens have interested themselves long and
earnestly in planning for its beautification.
Chicago is already magnificent, because its
chief men have seen and planned magnificence
for it.
THE CITY ACTUAL
Meanwhile, what of the city as it exists to-day ?
Its physical features are well-enough known.
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CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
12797
Materially, the impression it gives is that of
activity and disorder, wealth and carelessness.
It has its great buildings and its hovels —
a square mile or so of stone blocks, massive
and unornamented, mile on mile of slatternly
shantied streets, and not so many miles of
pretty, modest residences. An elevated rail-
road ruins some of its best downtown thor-
oughfares. It has a university admirable
in location, equipment, and personnel. Grouped
around a copy of Magdalen Tower, it lacks
and equally possible, with pains, to select
characteristics going to prove it a centre of
intelligence and refinement.
The actual Chicago of to-day, the Chicago
which is growing up to its greater destiny,
is very human in the contradictions to be found
in its character.
INVESTIGATING THE MAYOR
The formal government of a city is a feature
which tells much concerning its spirit
Copyright. 19091 by CommercbJ Club of Chka*o
THE PLAN OF GRANT PARK, THE FACADE OF THE CITY, THE PROPOSED HARBOR, AND THE
LAGOONS OF THE PROPOSED PARK ON THE SOUTH SHORE
the traditions of an Oxford — and would
throw them away if it were cumbered with
them. No building of unimpeachable out-
ward aspect stands in the city, but there is
a club which has contrived for itself in the
top of a tall building the most perfect Gothic
hall in the New World, and an hotel with
the most restful and satisfying reading-room
a man may see in traveling in four continents.
Chicago has — one might mention a hundred
pleasant features, and as many of the other
sort. It would be possible to write of it as
a vulgar, rude, and uncultured community,
Consider first the executive branch of
Chicago's government. The present Mayor,
Fred A. Busse, a Republican, was elected
in 1907 over Mayor Edward F. Dunne, whose
plan of municipal ownership of the street
railways was unacceptable to conservative
business men. Busse was a scion of the
street, an habitu£ of liquor saloons and other
not conspicuously respectable resorts. He
had, nevertheless, a certain reputation for
good business sense and general honesty. He
was elected by an unholy combination of low
interests and decent ones, and inaugurated with
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CHICAGO -ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
much rejoicing over the prospect of an efficient
business administration.
The first two years of Mayor Busse's term
passed to general satisfaction. His appoint-
ments were deemed good, and there was less
complaint than formerly of laxity in the
departments.
Last spring there was elected to Council
from the Seventh Ward a young professor
of the University of Chicago named Charles
E. Merriam. As Charles E. Merriam is a
man of whom the country is certain to hear
much in the future, let me give him a few words
of introduction, He is an Iowa man, now
thirty-six years old; educated at his own
State University and Columbia University,
New York, with a year abroad. Since 1900
its bonded indebtedness by about $16,000,000.
The new bonds could only be issued, however,
as called for by a popular referendum.
Mr. Merriam saw his opportunity and
offered in Council a resolution reciting that
in view of the likelihood of an appeal to
the citizens for a warrant to issue bonds, it
was expedient to assure the citizens that the
city government was making good use of its
money, and that, therefore, a Commission be
appointed to inquire into the municipal
accounts with a view to suggesting any possible
methods of economy.
To refuse, under the circumstances, to pass
this resolution would have been fatal to the
success of any appeal to the public for more
money. The Commission was created. Mr.
THE RIVER GATEWAY TO CHICAGO, AS SEEN FROM THE LAKE
he has been an associate- professor in the
department of political science of the Uni-
versity of Chicago. He is the author of
several learned works, but has graduated
from abstract study of, to practical activity
in politics. A year or two ago he made a
study of the sources of the municipal revenue
of Chicago, in preparation for the expected
new City Charter. He also did valuable work
as a member of the Commission appointed to
study the possibilities for improving Chicago's
harbor.
Mr. Merriam, when elected to Council, had
an idea that the accounts of the city would
bear looking into. He realized that it might
not be the easiest thing in the world to get at
those accounts. As events came about, it
proved much easier than could have been hoped.
In 1909 the Illinois Legislature by Act
empowered the city of Chicago to increase
Merriam, naturally, headed it. The Mayor
did not suspect that the university professor
dreamed of anything more than an academic
exercise in theoretical political economy.
The Commission took possession of a room
in the Municipal Building and proceeded, to
the astonishment of the Mayor, to hold a
public inquest into the workings of his
administration.
A CORRUPT CITY HALL
Within a week, the Merriam Commission
had learned, and within thirty days it had
convinced the city, that the municipal govern-
ment was thoroughly corrupt; that it was
controlled by a gang of looters banded to
enrich themselves through fraudulent con-
tracts, false measures and weights, illegal
purchases and criminal sales of city property,
and a variety of other hold-up games.
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Dr Harry Pratt Judson, President University of Chicago
Mr. Edward B. Butler Mr. Frederick A. Delano, President Wabash Railroad
Ms. Charles L. Hutchinson, President Corn Exchange Bank Mr. James B. Forcan, President First National Bank
MEN PROMINENT IN CHICAGO'S UPWARD MOVEMENT
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CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
MR. WALTER L. FISHER
Examiner for the Merriam Commission
MR. CHARLES H. WACKER
Chair mag of the Chicago Plan Commission
It is no part of the purpose of this article to
explain these games for the instruction of
already adept officials of other cities. Truth
to tell, they were not especially brilliant or
original games.
The first case taken up was that of Michael
H. McGovern, a liberal-minded contractor
who allowed the City Paymaster to hand him
$45,000 more than his contract called for, on
his declaration that he had encountered shale
rock while excavating for a sewer in Lawrence
Avenue. The shale existed only in the imagin-
ation of McGovern and his City-Hall con-
federates, the soil really being a fine clay, out
of which McGovern planned to make brick
to sell to the city.
Followed the T. A. Cummings Foundry
case. Just after Mr. Busse's election to the
mayoralty there was organized by Busse's
personal lawyer — under the presidency of
Busse's life-long friend, Thomas A. Cummings,
and under the financial backing of Busse's
intimate, Andrew J. Graham — a foundry
company. The foundry was designed by
Busse's own architect, E. M. Newman, with
special reference to the manufacture of fire-
plugs, manhole covers and other cast-iron
articles used by the city. On Busse's accession
to office this company began at once to enjoy
a monopoly of the city's cast-iron business.
In these cases, the statute requiring advertis-
ing for bids was obeyed, and the Cummings
company's bids were lowest. But the Com-
mins company was not held to its bid.
Whereas it had offered to furnish hydrant-
covers at $26.76 per ton, and valve-basin
covers at $23.40, it was actually paid at
a far higher rate, even at one date $100 per
ton for hydrant castings — four times its
bid and three times the next lowest bid. The
law was deliberately evaded by the device of
ordering castings in lots of slightly less than
$500, though hundreds of tons were so ordered.
Under this lawless system of "split bills," the
company thus organized and favored was paid
Si 20,000 out of the city treasury. It did its
own weighing and fixed its own prices, which
were an outrageous swindle.
The Chicago Fire Appliance Company
attracted the attention of the Merriam Com-
mission. This is an institution reorganized
by Mr. Harry A. Smith with a special view to
taking care of the odds and ends of municipal
graft, Mr. Harry A. Smith being Mayor
Busse's personal secretary (with a desk in the
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CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
1 2801
Mayor's office, his next-door neighbor) and
secretary of the Busse Coal Company. The
Chicago Fire Appliance Company has no
factory, warehouses, nor wagons; its business
investment consists of a supply of bill-heads.
It does not handle nor see the goods which
it "sells,, to the city. When the city needs
petty supplies, Business Agent Coleman tele-
phones Smith's Company at the Mayor's
office; the "Company" telephones to a manu-
facturer, who delivers the goods to the city,
but sends the bill to Smith. Smith copies
the bill on his little typewriter, in the Mayor's
office, taking care to add from 30 per £ent. to
40 per cent, to the figures. The Merriam Com-
mission tested seventy samples of oil furnished
the city by the Chicago Fire Appliance Com-
pany and found all but four of them below
the specification.
Further investigations revealed the activities
of a Coal Ring, formed to enjoy a monopoly
in supplying the city, its public schools, etc.,
with fuel, and to secure private orders by hold-
ing over the heads of business houses threats
of increased assessment for taxation and threats
from the smoke-inspection department. The
centre of the coal ring was the Busse Coal
Company, from which Busse had ostensibly
retired on becoming Mayor. The Mayor's
secretary, Harry A. Smith, receives a salary
of $5,000 as a salesman of the City Fuel
Company, in addition to the graft which he
enjoys in connection with the Fire Appliance
Company.
THE MAYOR EXCUSED
These are but a few typical instances. It
is declared that the investigation will show
that more than $30,000,000 has been stolen
from the city in Busse's time — $10,000,000
a year. This is about the rate at which the
Tweed ring looted New York.
It is illustrative of the spirit of Chicago
that Mayor Busse has no lack of defenders.
Very few indeed of the solid men of the city
allow themselves to be persuaded that the
Mayor is a rogue. He is commonly looked
upon as a somewhat simple man, fond of his
friends and unable to distinguish between
permissible kindness and criminal favoritism.
Chicago, at this stage of its life, does not require
its officials to make that distinction. Morality
is not more refined in this young, lusty city
than it is likely to be in a robust youth.
It is not even possible to say th&t the dis-
closures of the Merriam Commission have
caused any particular excitement. One news-
paper has for some months been devoting its
front page to the story; this newspaper is
controlled by United States Senator Lorrimer,
to whom, now that he has formed a new alliance
with Governor Deneen, the Mayor's fall
would be welcome. The virtuous and out-
raged wrath of the Senator's newspaper is
more strident than that of the average citizen.
The latter is rather crest-fallen over the out-
come of his expectation of a business admin-
MR. FRED A. BUSSE
Mayor of Chicago
istration — but he has never looked forward
to that Utopian dawn when public office
should not have one eye open for private
graft.
Let no one picture Chicago in too dark
colors. It would be as far amiss to judge it to
be a city abandoned to corruption as it would
be to imagine it a metropolis as pure of soul
as the designers of the Chicago Plan hope
to make it lovely of outward feature.
The city is a living, breathing personality.
It is living according to the way of life — the
inconsistent way of life. It is a being of mixed
and contending impulses. It is conscious
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CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
of the attraction of righteousness and beauty,
but the old familiar, easy-going paths are
hard to leave. Meanwhile, many and dra-
matic are the clashes between the city as it
is content to be and its Higher Self.
THE MUNICIPAL VOTERS' LEAGUE
There are many agencies at work for civic
morality. Chief of them is the Municipal
Voters' League, which has cleared up the
Alderman" was a by- word. The band of
precious boodlers then fattening on the spoils
of municipal misrule has never anywhere had
an equal, in the open corruptness, the merry
and defiant iniquity of its operations.
To-day less than twenty Aldermen are
suspected of the possession of itching palms.
Probably less than that number are actually
corruptible.
The change was effected thus: A meeting
Copyright. 1909, by Commercial Club of Chicago
VIEW (LOOKING WEST) OF THE PROPOSED CIVIC CENTRE PLAZA AND BUILDINGS
Showing it as the centre of the system of arteries of circulation and of the surrounding country
legislative branch of the city government
pretty thoroughly.
In 1896 the Chicago City Council was
mainly a body of professional thieves. Mem-
bership in it was almost conclusive evidence
of a purpose to commit larceny. Of its sixty-
eight members, precisely seven were honest
men. The chief business of the remaining
sixty-one was the open sale of legislation, the
passage of blanket-franchise ordinances for
themselves under bogus names, and the gen-
eral sand-bagging of corporations. "Chicago
in 1896 of some two hundred and forty
righteous men selected a Committee of One
Hundred, which in turn appointed a self-
perpetuating Executive Committee of Nine,
authorized it to work as the Municipal Voters'
League, and adjourned sine die.
The Committee of One Hundred has never
reassembled, and the general membership
of the organization has never had a meeting;
but the Executive Committee, working in the
name of the League, has maintained for four-
teen years a permanent office and staff, and
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CHICAGO— ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
12803
fought election after election in the interest
of the people.
The Municipal Voters' League conceives
its work to be the investigation of the characters
and qualifications of candidates for Aldermen.
That is all. The first year it defeated enough
boodling candidates to give the Mayor an
honest one-third in the Council to support
his veto of graft ordinances. Continuing
steadily at work, it has become the paramount
influence in every election of Aldermen, and
it has now almost reversed the conditions
which it found at its organization. In other
cities Committees of One Hundred and the
like have fought and won one election — and
forgot to fight the next.
Not so in Chicago. There has been born
in its soul a permanent, an abiding spirit of
resistance to evil, a spirit watchful, never
discouraged, willing to labor and to persist
in laboring, with a determination as wakeful
and constant as the influence which it opposes.
ABILITY, NOT MERE HONESTY, NOW SOUGHT
Of late the work of this noteworthy civic
agency has broadened in respect of the fact
that it has begun to require ability as well
as honesty before it endorses a candidacy.
Graft is more subtle than it used to be, and
something more than mere negative incor-
ruptibility is required to defeat it. More-
over, the city is recognized to have interests
which call for the largest measure of positive
and constructive skill for their protection and
promotion. The League has recently sought
to induce men of real ability, distinguished in
the world of business, of social or political
economy, to undertake aldermanic duties. "
Especially is the improved character of the
City Council to be rejoiced in because of the
probability that this body will soon have to
arrange the terms of a general merger of
Chicago's street-car and elevated railway lines.
The Morgan interest has withdrawn from
the streets of the city, and local capital now
controls the Chicago City and connecting
railways. Under the Fisher settlement the
city takes 55 per cent, of the revenue of the
lines, after operating expenses and fixed
charges have been deducted. Immense sys-
tems to the south of the city, including the
Calumet and South Chicago Railway, and the
Southern Street Railway, and the Hammond,
Whiting and East Chicago Electric Railway,
now carrying one hundred millions of pas-
sengers annually, wail to come in. A subway
for freight transportation runs under the
principal down-town streets. Though the
engineering problem presented by the sandy
soil is difficult, the building of a passenger
subway by the United Railways Company is
probable. It is even possible that the near
future will see a consolidation of all the public
service corporations of the city. The city's
interests should be cared for by aldermen
not only of probity but of acumen.
The Municipal Voters' League is not alone
in its work for civic righteousness. The City
Club is another powerful guardian of the
public interests. The Citizens' Association
is an old organization still active in the unearth-
ing of fraud against the municipality. Perhaps
no more practical good is being done than by
the Juvenile Protective Association, and the
League for the Protection of Immigrants.
There are half a million Germans in Chicago,
200,000 Irish, 130,000 Poles and 110,000
Scandinavians.
WAR AGAINST THE " WHITE SLAVES"
In one respect Chicago continues to be
morally behind any other American city,
with the possible exception of New Orleans.
"Vice" flourishes here with a spectacular
openness inconceivable to one who knows
only New York, Paris, London, or Berlin.
There are four well-defined districts, the two
chief ones being respectively in the South
and West Sides. The former, a block of
some twenty city squares, lined with brilliantly
lighted resorts, is the location of the more
pretentious places; the latter, more extensive
but less ornate, is inhabited chiefly by Jews.
In these two districts there are together
about seven hundred illegal houses; in the
whole city about twenty-five hundred. These
figures are given me by an ex-assistant state
attorney for a number of years specially con-
cerned with the investigation of "white slave"
cases, Mr. Clifford G. Roe. Mr. Roe has
continued the prosecution of dealers in women
since his retirement from office.
He has prosecuted over three hundred men
and women for "procuring," and he has
secured convictions in every case. Among
well-kno\vT) gentry of this ilk now languishing
in prison through his agency are Mike and
Molly Hart, Maurice and Madame von
Bever, Monkey-faced Charley, Dick Tyler and
Paul Auer, Ate Weinstein and Dave Garfinkel.
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CHICAGO — ITS STRUGGLE AND ITS DREAM
The last named is the latest important
conviction, a member of the "bottom" gang
of St. Louis, and the chief agent of the trade
between that city and Chicago. His victims
were usually American girls from the restau-
rants and department stores of St. Louis.
Weinstein is a "driver" who operated in
Chicago exclusively. He had a regular staff
of young men and abandoned women, to
whom he furnished money to haunt the parks
and cheap resorts and lure girls.
The trade came to Chicago with the World's
Fair in 1893. Before that date the business
was, so to speak, desultory and unorganized.
Since the World's Fair it has been chiefly in the
hands of Jews. The French flourished here
for a few years, but have now practically
abandoned the city. Some of the most
desperate "drivers" are Italians. The ma-
jority of women are American-born. Mr.
Roe, out of ample observation, believes that
a majority are where they are through the
work of procurers. He holds that the natural
gravitation toward the life would be so small
that the business would dwindle if the supply
were not constantly maintained and renewed
by dealers.
Meanwhile, the myriads of lights glitter
in the windows and in the half-open doorways
of hundreds of illegal resorts — and, except
a handful of philanthropic Jews, nobody
in Chicago seems to care.
POLICE CORRUPTION DOOMED
There is, however, a growing interest in
the relations of the police and the politicians
with " vice." The system of graft is, of course,
that practised everywhere — payments to the
police, and the purchase of liquors, dresses,
and other supplies at excessive rates from
politicians. Each of the inspectors of police
has a " man Friday," whose business is reputed
to be the collection of protection money. One
inspector only was generally believed innocent
— McCann, but he was easily convicted last
summer by the new State's Attorney, John
E. W. Wayman. The new chief of police,
Mr. Steward, is a man with a good Civil
Service record, but of no pronounced force of
character.
It is a pleasure to report the prospect that a
final end will be put to po'ice knavery in
Chicago through an institution which the
city has lately created, and with which it is
now gradually becoming acquainted. The
Municipal Court of Chicago was the subject of
a special article in The World's Work last
month. This Court is Chicago's chief con-
tribution to the cause of righteous city govern-
ment, as it is also one of the most important
departures in the administration of justice of
modern times.
When Chicago's Municipal Court, having
established itself beyond opposition, stretches
out its arm in the full strength conferred upon
it by law, there will be an end of corruption
in the police force.
This is the most gratifying prospect, the
most definite promise, in the whole Chicago
situation.
the city saved
Somewhat such, then, is Chicago. It does
not present, at every point, an agreeable
picture. It is not, in every feature, a delight
to contemplate.
But it is far more interesting than if it were.
It is a living city, and its life is like all
life — a conflict of many influences. In some
respects it is the most interesting community
in the land. It is one of the least sophisticated.
Chicago's emotions are sincere. It makes
few pretenses. Physically, it is still in the
early stage of development — but it promises
to surpass the whole world in realized magnifi-
cence, as it has already excelled it in the
audacity of its vision of the City Beautiful.
Morally, it is still in the stage of somewhat
irresponsible youth, but the soberness of man-
hood is coming to it.
The spirit of youthfulness, indeed, its care-
lessness, confidence, and buoyancy, inhabits
it. Chicago still has citizens who want to
keep it "wide open," because a "liberal"
policy puts money in circulation. The grow-
ing majority of its population, however, have
come to see that order, decency, well-kept
streets, beautiful parks, splendid museums,
will do more to draw desirable inhabitants
and visitors than disorder, dissoluteness, and
dirt.
Chicago has, it must be remembered, this
peculiarity: Planted in the very heart of the
nation, it is an American city one in four of
whose population is American. Yet the city
is thoroughly American. Part of its energy,
it is true, is spent in keeping itself 9a It has,
however, energy enough left to, furnish the
country with one of its most characteristic
and inspiring spectacles — that erf a grant city,
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THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
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swiftly risen from the wilderness soil, emerging
through much travail, 'through many bitter
and dramatic conflicts, to noble and beautiful
things.
There is a good deal of the old Adam in
Chicago, but the city is working out its salva-
tion, and not in fear and trembling. Salvation
is a process. Chicago is saved, in spite of its
corrupt government, its wretched streets, its
filthy air, its stretching miles of hovels; saved
by its dream — by the faith in its heart and
on its jocund face.
THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
AN ACCOUNT OF THE SYSTEM UNDER WHICH THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HAS ABDICATED
BY
WILLIAM BAYARD HALE
FOR what purpose does the gentleman
rise?"
The gentleman has been chosen
by 200,000 American citizens to represent
them in the Congress of the United States.
He states the purpose for which he rises.
He desires to move the passage of a bill.
"The gentleman is not recognized for that
purpose."
There is no other bill in debate, no resolu-
tion under discussion. There is no order
of the day demanding precedence. The
previous question has not been moved. The
gentleman's purpose is not opposed to recog-
nized public policy; it is not subversive of
orderly procedure of the House; it is not
idiotic nor frivolous nor indecent. There is
no reason why the gentleman should not be
recognized — except that back of the marble
pulpit stands another gentleman with white
chin-whiskers, a white waistcoat, and a carna-
tion in his buttonhole, who doesn't favor the
passage of the bill, and who doesn't propose
to permit Congress to pass it
There are in the room some three hundred
other gentlemen sitting at circling lines of
desks, on whose mahogany tops the yellow
light beats down from a grilled ceiling. These
gentlemen are supposed to be engaged in
making laws for the good of the country. The
supposition is held only by the constituents
at home — the gentlemen themselves are
under no delusion as to their position. They
are humble petitioners at the foot of the throne
occupied by the tall figure in a white waist-
ooa*! with a pink carnation in his buttonhole,
a white whisker under his chin, and a gavel
in his left hand.
The three-hundred-odd others know full
well that they can pass no measure, debate
no measure, amend no measure, without the
consent of the tall man. They understand
that the fate of their desires is in his hands.
They are aware that their own personal
careers may be made or ruined by his humor
or his whim. They know that, except as a
group of petitioners whose constant impor-
tunities secure small favors, they would as
well be at home, leaving Joseph G. Cannon
alone with the clerks and the business of Con-
gress. They know it, because it is their own
doing. Nobody has wrested their power from
them. They have abdicated. They them-
selves passed the rules which authorize Mr.
Cannon, among other things, to refuse them
recognition.
The people of the United States have heard
a great deal about Cannonism. They know
that Congress has at last risen against it. The
people know what Cannonism is, but perhaps
they are not quite clear as to why Cannonism
is, or how it works. Few outside Washing-
ton have any clear idea of what the conditions
in Congress are. The people ought to hear
the story, if for no other reason than that it
is such an amazing one — so amazing that it
might seem to be not the sober truth, but some
grotesque and gigantic joke. But it is a story
which should be told, besides, because the telling
should warn the nation to insist on a thorough
revolution in Congressional methods. The
fall of Mr. Cannon will not, in itself, mean the
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THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
destruction of the tyrannical system by which
Mr. Cannon rules. It is, after all, the system,
not the man, that has reduced the popular
branch of the national legislature to impotence
abject and complete.
The system, in outline, is not difficult to
understand. In practice, it grows compli-
cated— and funnier — or uglier. But the
prime facts are these:
THE SOURCES OF THE SPEAKER^ POWER
One fact. The gentlemen of Congress ask
the Speaker to name the standing committees
and their chairmen. The real work of
Congress, as everybody knows, is done by
its standing committees. Some of these are
more important than others; appointment to
the important ones is much desired. A
Congressman's career depends on his mem-
bership in good committees. A Congressman
secures and retains such membership solely
and alone by the Speaker's favor. By tradi-
tion, new members are entitled to expect
assignments only to poor committees, and
old members to better ones. Chairmanships
are expected to fall to "ranking" members
of the committees. Joseph G. Cannon pays
little attention to these expectations. His own
will, his own personal likes and dislikes, his
own plans and purposes, determine abso-
lutely the position of every member of the
House.
We have, then, this farcical situation: Con-
gressmen come to the House by virtue of
election by the people. But they can do
nothing in the House except through the
House's committees. They go to committees
by virtue of Joseph G. Cannon's appointment.
Their principal obligation, then, is to him —
and never for a moment are they permitted
to forget this.
The other fact. Before he has named the
committees, oh, yes! decidedly, before he
has named the committees, the Speaker asks
the House to adopt the rules of the preceding
Congress. Under the Speakership of Joseph
G. Cannon, to vote against the rules means to
forfeit all chances of appointment to good
committees.
They are excellent rules. They do what
they intend to do with a thoroughness beautiful
to reflect upon. They leave the members of
Congress nothing. They confer all power
upon the Speaker. Since they cannot foresee
the details of every parliamentary situation
and necessity, they create a permanent Com-
mittee on Rules to carry out the Speaker's
further will. He is its chairman. Should any
Congressman at any time presume to offer any
amendment to the rules, it is (beautiful
thought!) by the tides themselves referred to
the Committee on Rules. They are excellent
rules, "bull-proof and sky-high," according
to the Western members. They are renewed
at the beginning of each session. The humor
of Congress is perennial.
Last spring there was a contest against the
rules. Thirty-one insurgents, led by Mr.
Norris of Nebraska, Mr. Murdock of Kansas,
and Mr. Cooper of Wisconsin — gentlemen
without a sense of humor — raised their voices
for a change. They would have got the
change but for the kindly assistance which
twenty-three Democratic Congressmen has-
tened to extend to the Republican Speaker.
A Mr. Fitzgerald, of Brooklyn, led his brethren
to the defense of Mr. Cannon's endangered
throne. The night before the opening of the
session, March 15, 1909, the Tammany Con-
gressmen each received a telegram, "Vote for
Fitzgerald amendment." Ever mindful of
the downtrodden, and grateful to his friends,
Mr. Cannon is understood, shortly after, to
have extended his hand to Albany and pre-
vented the Republican legislature of New
York from passing certain anti-Tammany
legislation. Certainly he selected Mr. Fitz-
gerald, the opponent of the Democratic leader
of the House, for one of the two Democratic
members of the Committee on Rules. By
virtue of the appointment, this man becomes
Democratic leader in Mr. Clark's absence
from the floor. He was, in fact, in charge of
the East Side of the House when the fateful
Norris amendment, taking away from the
Speaker the right to appoint the House quota
of the Ballinger Investigation Committee,
came up. Certainly Mr. Cannon promoted
the Democrats who came to his assistance,
and demoted the Republican insurgents. He
removed Mr. Norris from the important
Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds
and interred him in a dead Committee
on Coinage, Weights and Measures. He
deposed Mr. Cooper, who had been Chair-
man of the Committee on Insular Affairs
ever since its formation, and removed him
from the committee altogether. He deposed
and separated from the Committee on Ex-
penditures in the Interior Department Mr.
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THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
12807
Haugen, who had been its chairman for
two Congresses. And so on.
THE BULL-raOOF RULES
The rules of the Sixty-first Congress deserve
better of literature than their practical character
is likely to vouchsafe them. They deserve the
study and admiration of all who would under-
stand the art of saying much in little — or
rather of doing much in saying little. For
instance, when they mean that no member
may speak without Mr. Cannon's permission,
they merely say that a member may, "on being
recognized," proceed. But you will search
the rules in vain for any clause or phrase
which puts the Speaker under any obligation
to recognize a member. The Speaker has,
however, under arrangement previously made,
recognized members who were not present.
Why do not gentlemen who can't get recogni-
tion at the hands of the Speaker appeal from
the Speaker? Because they have to be recog-
nized before they can appeal.
Excellent as the rules are, however, they
would be inadequate without the constant
watchfulness of the Committee on Rules.
The designation of this admirable body
gives little or no notion of its function. The
"rules" with which it is occupied are the
special methods of procedure by which legis-
lation is accelerated or stopped — special
steps for particular bills.
Thus the Committee (that is, Mr. Cannon
in the form of the Committee) will bring in a
"rule" that a certain measure is to be debated
not more than one hour. It will go further:
it will supply, a "rule" that no amendment
may be offered to a certain measure. Or it
will even provide a "rule" that only one
specified amendment may be offered. It will
give the very language of the amendment which
may be offered.
This is the sort of a rule under which the
Payne- Aldrich Tariff Bill was passed, and here,
as well as anywhere, a few remarks may be
made on that amazing performance.
HOW CONGRESSMEN MAKE A TARIFF
There are a great many items in a tariff
bill; the Payne- Aldrich schedule had 4,000
items. Most of them nobody in Congress
wanted to debate; but there were some which
Congressmen did most emphatically want
to debate — woolens, yarn, worsteds, cotton.
With woolen manufacturing companies declar-
ing dividends of from 15 per cent to 57 per
cent., there is no doubt in the world that lower
rates would have been secured for these
necessities — had Congress been allowed to
get at them. Congressmen would have liked
to get at the tariff on petroleum, which was
coming in with a countervailing duty.
They were not permitted to do so. When
the Tariff Bill came finally before the House
it was under the "rule" (April 3, 1909), which
provided that no amendment should be in order
except as regards barley, barley-malt, hides,
and lumber, and that there should "be in
order a single amendment in regard to petro-
leum, such amendment being, in words and
figures, as follows: 'crude petroleum, and
its products, 25 per cent ad valorem.' "
That is to say, the 391 members of Congress
sent to Washington by the people of the
United States, for the purpose of legislating
for them, were to be allowed to pass a tariff
bill thoughtfully prepared for them by "the
leaders"; they were to be allowed to express
any dissatisfaction they might feel with this
tariff bill to this extent, namely: they might
offer amendments affecting the price of barley,
leather, and lumber, and they were also
further graciously allowed to say that they
preferred a 25 per cent, ad valorem duty on
oil to a countervailing duty on that necessity.
That represents the fuU extent to which the
representatives of the people of the United
States were, as Representatives, on the floor
of the House, allowed to participate in the
framing of the Tariff Act under which we
are now living.
The "rule" was made by Speaker Cannon,
through his Committee on Rules.
THE FINE ITALIAN HAND AT WORK
Back of the date of the reporting of the
Payne bill to the House, there is a little history
in which the power of the Speaker comes out.
It was freely expected by both parties that the
Ways and Means Committee's bill would put
petroleum on the free list, Mr. Payne and every
other Republican member of the Committee
being opposed to the countervailing duty. It
was at the personal command of the Speaker,
Mr. Cannon, and because of obligations owed
and favors expected, that these members
repudiated their own convictions and turned
their backs on the interest of the people. The
row was tremendous. Several members con-
templated resigning their seats, feeling that
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12808
THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
they could never go back to their districts with
the stigma upon them of having voted to put
a duty on kerosene. Hut the Speaker's word
was law. The Committee put the duty on
petroleum into the bill.
Outside of Congress itself, it is difficult to
appreciate the moral strength which has lain
behind the Speaker's command. The Repub-
lican who disobeyed it became a political out-
cast His career was closed. His constituents
were, in some mysterious way, given to under-
stand that their member had no influence and
could do nothing for them. The very door-
keepers refused to speak in public to the
"insurgent" leaders. Their wives were
socially ostracized. It is not to be wondered
at that the members of Mr. Cannon's best
committee came to see eye to eye with him
on the subject of petroleum.
We might stop here a moment to consider
tariff reform in its progress through Congress.
We observe that:
The Tariff BiU was framed initially by a
Committee of Mr. Cannon's appointment;
In the progress of its work, Mr. Cannon
personally imposed his will upon its members;
When it emerged from this one of his com-
mittees, another of his committees by' "rule"
forbade amendment by Congressmen except
on a few specified subjects, on one of which the
very language of the only permitted amendment
was furnished.
Mr. Cannon in his own person, or in that
of one of his lieutenants, presided over Con-
gress when it "deliberated," under the "rule"
of his committee, on the bill framed by his
committee, under his imposed influence.
Mr. Cannon made the committee which
framed the original bill; Mr. Cannon entered
that committee when it was about to express
an opinion of its own and bent it to his will;
Mr. Cannon refused to allow Congress to alter
the bill he submitted save in four of its 4,000
particulars, and dictated the language of the
only allowable alternative in one of these four
cases; Mr. Cannon controlled the parlia-
mentary procedure of the House when, under
these conditions, it was permitted the formality
of passing the bill.
Finally, Mr. Cannon appointed the Conferees
who "represented" the House in the dis-
cussion of "its" differences with the Senate.
In doing this, Mr. Cannon passed over
Mr. Hill of Connecticut, whose rank on the
Committee of Ways and Means entitled him
to a place on the Conference Committee, and
Mr. Needham of California, both fair men who
would have faithfully represented the House
Bill, and put in their places Mr. Calderhead
and Mr. Fordney, men whose aim in life is to
keep the tariff up. The House had voted a
duty of $1 per thousand on rough lumber;
the Senate, a duty of $1.50. Mr. Fordney
is a lumber dealer. He had voted in the
Committee for a $2 duty. He had said on the
floor of the House, "I sweat blood every time
they reduce a schedule." Mr. Cannon could
have had but one purpose in appointing these
men to the Conference Committee, namely,
not to represent the will of the House, but to
defeat it.
This is a just and even moderate account
of the facts. Does it constitute an account
of anything recognizable as Republican govern-
ment — or is it the most complete caricature,
the most entertaining travesty, the most
uproarious farce, the hugest joke, of which
Republican government has" ever been the
subject ?
UNPREMEDITATED INCIDENTAL COMEDY
The best farces are sometimes, made more
laughable by fortuitous circumstances. Power-
ful as the Speaker is, he is not infallible.
Occasionally, sharp practice is too sharp.
History supplies us here with a touch of
unpremeditated comedy.
To the amendment — the only one on which
Congress was to be allowed to vote — to the
amendment "crude petroleum, and its prod-
ucts, 25 per cent, ad valorem," Mr. Norris of
Nebraska, not having the fear of the Lord
before his eyes, astounded the whole House
by offering an amendment to strike out the
figures "25" and substitute therefor the
figure "1." This was in Committee of the
Whole, and the Speaker had put Mr. Olmsted
into the Chair. He ruled it out of order to
offer an amendment to this amendment But
the House saw its opportunity. Voices cried
out, appealing from a ruling so glaringly
wrong, and a rousing majority sustained the
appeal. Mr. Norris's amendment was there-
fore in order. Mr. Cannon, his plan upset
and his reign temporarily suspended, was
compelled to take the floor like an ordinary
member. He ranted, raved, besought and
vituperated — for once in vain. On roll-
call, the House, for a moment released and
jubilant, voted 322 to 47, seven to one, for free oil.
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THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
12809
It was due solely to an accidental mis-
carriage of the Speakership programme that
Congress got what 85 per cent of its members
wanted. Except for an accident, the country
would have been saddled with a 25 per cent,
duty on oil, to which a seven-to-one majority
of the people's Representatives in Congress
was opposed.
HOW CONGRESS VOTED AN EMERGENCY BILL
Let npt this little misadventure of the
Speaker divert attention from the method by
which generally he has saved Congress the
labor of thinking out its legislation for itself.
The chief elements of the method are the
Speaker's power of appointment and his
Committee on Rules. He has influenced the
fate of proposed legislation through the power
of assignment to what committee he chose;
he has controlled every committee to the extent
of having created its membership and its chair-
man; he has influenced the opinions and votes
of Congressmen through all-powerful favors,
threats and promises; he has shut off debate
and estopped amendments through his "rules";
he has presided over the "deliberations" which
his "rules" allow; he has recognized or
refused to recognize according as the purpose
of the Congressman who presumes to speak
was or was not agreeable to him.
There was the case of the Currency Bill
of two years ago. An emergency existed in
the country; money was direly needed and
demanded. A bill was proposed in the
Senate, providing for the issue of an emer-
gency currency based on railroad and
other securities. It was soon seen to be
altogether unacceptable to the House. The
Speaker appointed a special committee, which
in due course brought in what was known
as the Vreeland Bill. This was fairly agreeable
to the sentiments of Congressmen. It was
referred to a Conference Committee appointed
by Mr. Cannon. This Committee reported
back to the House on the eve of adjournment,
in the midst of general confusion and anxiety.
In such haste was its report prepared that the
printed copies laid on members' desks were
full of misprints. Pages were not even num-
bered. It was found that the bill now recom-
mended was the original House Bill with the
Senate Bill tacked on to it. This came up under
a suspension of the rules.
What could be done? Nothing could be
done except to pass the bill, or pass no bill.
The Speaker had so arranged that Congress
could give the country such relief as could be
given under the measure which Congress
didn't want — or leave it without relief. The
American people are a practical people. They
ask for results, not reasons. A Representative
who went home and explained that he had
voted against the only currency bill it was
possible to pass, because he didn't like half of
its provisions, would never have gone to
Washington again. The House swallowed
the Senate Bill.
THE TRICK RIDER
The Speaker constantly has recourse to the
amusing trick of defeating the will of the House
by having its committees tack objectionable
provisions on to bills otherwise acceptable.
He did this, in a curiously sapient way, with
the bill compelling publication of campaign
expenses. Mr. Cannon has gone up and
down the country declaring that the Democrats
defeated this measure, wretches that they are,
incapable of understanding the beauties and
glories of a pure election. So, indeed, did the
dastardly Democrats. But this is why:
Mr. McCall of Massachusetts originally
introduced the bill in question (H. of R. 201 12)
in the first session of the Sixtieth Congress. It
was referred to the Committee on the Election
of the President, Vice-President, and Members
of Congress. Here it received the warm
championship of Mr. Norris of Nebraska.
The chairman of the Committee, Mr. Gaines,
had his doubts about the bill, but only one
member, Mr. Burke of Pennsylvania, was
against it. Mr. Norris secured the approval
of Mr. Dalzel and Mr. Payne, who attended
a committee meeting and advised that it would
be good Republican politics to report favorably.
This was now unanimously resolved on, and
Judge Norris was unanimously asked to take
charge of the bill on the floor. It was reported
back April 20th.
Mr. Norris found that he could get no
recognition for the purpose of putting the bill
on its passage. He made his call on the
Speaker and was flatly told that the bill was
nonsense and no chance would be given it.
Mr. Cannon's characterization of the folly
of such sentimental twaddle wis eloquent
and clear. Nothing would move him to
recognize the representative of the Committee
with his motion to pass the bllL
On May 12 th, however, Mr. Crumpacker
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THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
of Indiana was recognized with a publicity
bill which bore the same number as the com-
mittee bill and consisted of it, with the addition
of four new sections. These had no reference
to publicity for contributions, but were regu-
lations against election frauds drawn from
Federal statutes of reconstruction days directed
at the South. They had been tacked on to the
publicity bill with the deliberate purpose of
solidifying the Southern vote against the
measure. In this loaded form, the bill was
rushed through the House, but, as was expected
and intended, the Southern Senators secured
its defeat in the Senate.
Was it the wicked Democrats or the Speaker
who defeated the campaign-expenses publica-
tion bill?
THE PRIVILEGE OF TALKING
The degree to which the Speaker controls
the time in Congress has been another source
of his autocracy.
One thing that the public does not under-
stand is that the House of Representatives is
in session for only a very few minutes of the
day — for a minute or two after twelve o'clock,
and for five or six minutes just before five
o'clock in the afternoon. There are hundreds
of members who never made a speech and
scores who never made a motion in the House
— not because they are lazy, but because they
are not allowed to speak or make a motion
in the House. *
When the Speaker's gavel falls after the
chaplain's "Amen," any member has the
theoretical right to rise and make a motion.
As a matter of fact, and as a rule, only those
who have beforehand obtained permission
of the Speaker will be recognized. Usually
only one member is recognized, and his motion
is that the House now go into Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union, for a
particular purpose, which the motion specifies.
The House then goes into Committee of
the Whole. There is no physical change
save that the silver mace is taken down from
the marble column on which it has stood for
three minutes, and the Speaker leaves the
Chair, calling one of his lieutenants to the
easier task of keeping control of the Committee.
For, be it known, the Speaker and the
organization remain in control even when the
House is sitting as the comparatively harmless
Committee of the Whole. The Chairman
immediately recognizes, not the first gentleman
who rises, but the chairman of the Committee
in charge of the bill. He, now in possession
of the floor, yields his time piecemeal for five,
ten, or twenty minutes, to members who
desire to speak. For so long a member may
speak; with unanimous consent, he may speak
even longer; at all events, he will be given
unanimous consent to extend his remarks in
the Record to any length — for most of this
speaking is for home consumption.
Only, be it remembered, the privilege of
talking does not necessarily imply the right
of doing anything else. The Committee erf
the Whole is in session for a specified purpose,
and any motion aside from that purpose is out
of order.
Not that the speeches made in Committee
of the Whole need confine themselves to the
bill which is supposed to be under considera-
tion. Frequently the "leaders" desire to
drag out general discussion for days, so that
there will be no time for the House to take
up certain legislation which they don't want
considered. On the other hand, when it is
desired to shorten the debate, debate can
easily be limited or instantly cut off. It is
true that under the "five-minute rule," when
the bill in Committee of the Whole is read
by paragraphs, any member has a right to
offer an amendment and to speak on it, if he
desires, for five minutes. But this practice
may be, and is, when the organization desires
it, suspended.
It is under "suspension of the rules" that
many of the Speaker's little practical jokes
are performed. Here is a true and enter-
taining narrative:
A bill containing an appropriation of
$423,000 for the purchase of a parcel of 400
acres of land in the District of Columbia
to add to Rock Creek Park was referred by
Mr. Cannon to the Committee on Public
Buildings and Grounds. A sub-committee
viewed the land and concluded that it was not
worth the price, nor anything like the price,
and, on this opinion, the Committee reported
adversely as to this item.
A little later, nevertheless, a separate bill
containing this one appropriation alone was
introduced into the Senate. It passed the
Senate. When this bill came to the House,
the Speaker this time referred it, not to the
Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds,
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THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
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which was informed upon the subject and
which had once reported against it as a graft,
but to the Committee on Appropriations.
This Committee reported it back with a
favorable recommendation. Mr. Tawney of
Minnesota — a particular Cannon devotee
— was recognized by the Speaker and moved
the passage of the bill. A spirited fight fol-
lowed. The truth was told, and the House,
unwilling to vote an appropriation which had
in its hearing been denounced as this one
had been, defeated the bill on roll-call by a vote
of 57 yeas to 164 nays. This may be found
in the Record of the first session of the Sixtieth
Congress, pages 6998-7003. The date was
May 26, 1908.
This ought to have ended the matter. It
did not. On the evening of March 3, 1909,
in the same Congress, a few hours before its
expiration, when all was haste, confusion, and
noise, a member who had served on the sub-
committee which had reported against the
purchase happened to pass by the clerk's
desk. His ear was struck by the words
"zoSlogical park," and he stopped and listened
to the bill which the clerk was reading. He
recognized the identical old bill which the
House had voted down. Without any further
consideration by a committee, without any
further report, and yet without change of a
word, a syllable, a letter, or a punctuation
mark, here it was again on its passage in an
hour of uproar and confusion, when no one on
the floor was likely to note it. A motion to
suspend the rules and pass the bill had been
made by Mr. Smith, Chairman of the Com-
mittee on the District of Columbia. The
sub-committee member demanded a second
and then communicated his misgivings to
Mr. Davis of Minnesota, who volunteered
to sound Mr. Smith. The conversation ran
something like this:
"Smith, what is this bill?"
"Why, it's a bill to add 400 acres to the
Zoological Park."
"Well, what about it?"
"Oh, I don't know. I suppose we ought
to do all we can for parks and all that
sort of thing. I really don't know much
about it. The Speaker asked me to see it
through."
A few words of explanation — that is to
say, a few words calling public attention to
what otherwise would have been done in secret
— doomed the bill. It was defeated, 31 yeas
to 192 nays — which may be found in the
Record of the second session of the Sixtieth
Congress, pages 3787, 3788, and 3792-4.
DID THE CONSTITUTION MEAN THIS?
It must by now be fairly clear how the
Speaker may dictate, and has all but abso-
lutely dictated, the action of the House, by
controlling its time and its parliamentary
procedure, after having constituted its work-
ing committees and made himself a perennial
fount of special "rules." The system is
well-nigh perfect, the abdication of the power
of Representatives is as nearly complete as
anything can be in this imperfect world.
The Speaker may bury any bill privately;
he may determine the shape in which it shall
come out of Committee if he allows it to come
out at all. He may dictate whether or not a
bill, after having been reported, shall be put
on its passage; whether or not members may
speak on it or offer to amend it. He may,
and on important measures does, prevent mem-
bers doing more than voting Aye or Nay on a
particular and fully formulated bill. They
may have debated and passed the tellers on a
hundred amendments dealing with the minutiae
of a bill, only to find that on the final vote
for passage they have to accept or reject a
totally different bill — or one which utterly
ignores all their debates and votes — find that
they have, after all, only the alternative of
accepting a measure with provisions which they
have stricken out or without provisions which
they have put in, or go without any legisla-
tion. Congress still has a veto on the Speaker,
but that is about all it has.
The advantages of the condition to which
Congress has been reduced are many. .For one
thing, members have been saved from the
necessity of studying public questions; after
their first term, few members have even pre-
tended to study them. For another thing,
progressive legislation has been discouraged.
It is hard and practically impossible to get
any measure of social or political progress past
the Speaker. Just as Mr. Cannon stood
against a downward revision of the tariff and
a scientific currency bill and postal reform,
and immigration restriction, so he stands
against railway rate regulation, a parcels-
post, a postal-saving system, direct election of
Senators, an income-tax bill, pure-food legis-
lation, waterways improvements, and the
conservation of forest and coal lands and water-
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THE SPEAKER OR THE PEOPLE?
power. Under him, the House has become
the chief bulwark of conservatism.
Congress has another privilege — it may
petition the Speaker. Petition him a member
must if he wants a chance to speak or make a
motion in the House.
Mr. Heflin, member of the Committee on
Agriculture, asked unanimous consent to call
up a bill, already unanimously recommended
by the Committee, making it unlawful for
Government employees to divulge Govern-
ment cotton statistics prior to publication.
Mr. Payne objected. A hundred members
then signed a petition requesting the Speaker
to recognize Mr. Heflin for this purpose. He
arose again, and was again refused recognition.
When he expostulated, the Speaker said*
"The Chair had reason to suppose there would
be objection." There had been no objection.
There would have been none, for Mr. Heflin
had observed Mr. Payne's absence. Mr.
Heflin went up to the Speaker's stand and
privately besought recognition, but Mr. Cannon
told him that he had agreed with Mr. Payne
not to allow the bill to be called up in the
latter's absence. The Speaker had prom-
ised one member to deprive another member
of his rights, to spurn the prayer of a quarter
of the House, and to defeat a meritorious
measure. Page 1507 of the Record (Friday,
February 4, 1910) will confirm this incident.
If this is what the Constitution meant by
making the House of Representatives its first-
named and chief creation, if this is what the
national legislature is maintained for, then
all is well — except that the elaborate elec-
tion machinery and the considerable expense
involved in returning 391 Congressmen might
be spared. A one-man Congress might be
more economically maintained than it is under
the present system.
The Constitution apparently erred in sup-
posing that the people desired direct repre-
sentation at the Capitol. By a curious irony,
the Senate, the aristocratic body, has become
more truly representative of the people than
the popular branch of Congress. While in
England the House of Commons is asserting
and extending its power, in America the
people's Representatives have surrendered
their authority.
How did this come about? By the appear-
ance, at the proper historic moment, of the
figure whose talents this article celebrates.
Mr. Cannon was not a commanding influence
when he was on the floor of the House. Strict
party regularity gained him good committee
appointments, but it was charged against him
then that prominent among his traits of char-
acter were Narrow-mindedness, Cunning, and
Vanity. Lifted to power, these traits become
Conservatismy Sagacity, and Administrative
Force.
The Speakership System existed for years
without developing its beneficent possibilities.
The rules are essentially what they were in
the day of Reed, Crisp, and Henderson. It
required the combination of the system and
the personality, characterize it how one may,
of Joseph G. Cannon.
It required more: it required the incentive
furnished in the social-political crisis which
the country is to-day facing. Compared
with the conflict now opening between Wealth
and Manhood, Privilege and Equal Oppor-
tunity, the political struggles of the past have
been sport. Privileged Wealth realized the
seriousness of the coming fight before the
people realized it Wealth entrenched itself
in Congress. Recognizing the possibilities
in the Speakership, it built up its organization
around that office. Mr. Cannon, a man who
belongs to another age of public morality, a
statesman into whose brain no glimmer of the
social truths which inspire the progressive
public men of the day could possibly penetrate,
became its capable instrument. When we
speak of Mr. Cannon, then, we mean the
Machine, the Organization, on which the
preservation of the privileges of Wealth depend.
Mr. Cannon's .efficiency is indisputable.
Unfortunately, it became so complete that it
has overreached itself.
Mr. Cannon will not remain in the Speaker-
ship longer than the close of the present Con-
gress. Perhaps not till then. How his final
overthrow will be accomplished may not be
predicted, but, since the vote of January 7th,
it is certain. The " insurgents " of yesterday
will be the heroes of a successful revolution .
to-morrow.
But what will it avail, now that the possi-
bilities 0} the system have been developed,
what will it avail to depose a particular tyrant,
and clothe another man with the power which
he possessed? If the people's Representatives
at the Capitol are to resume their constitutional
rights and duties, the elimination of Cannon
must be followed by a repudiation of the rules
which made Cannonism possible.
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HOW IMMIGRANTS SOLVE THE COST OF
LIVING
LITTLE STORIES OF EUROPEAN MILL-HANDS WHO HAVE PUT MONEY IN THE NEW
ENGLAND BANKS WHILE THEIR AMERICAN NEIGHBORS MADE ONLY A SCANT LIVING
BY
LEWIS E. MacBRAYNE
JOHN NIMKA and William Bochenko
came to the United States on the
steerage deck of an immigrant steam-
ship. They belonged to that class vaguely
known as "Polanders," and they had almost
no knowledge of the English tongue, barely
enough money to gain admission into the
country, and no definite plans for the future,
other than that they intended to work. They
were the typical average men of their class,
unimaginative, poorly dressed, and generally
unprepossessing in appearance.
They landed in New York, but their destina-
tion was New England, where the trail of
those who had gone before already led to
every cotton and woolen mill in the six states;
and in one of these factories each found employ-
ment at $5 a week. For nine years their
highest wage was $7.50, though in the tenth
year of their stay they were able to make $9
in another department. And in that year
they gave notice to their overseer one day that
they were going to quit work and go back to
their own country; and their joint savings,
when they drew them xfrom the banks where
they had been earning interest, amounted to
$3,500.
In the manufacturing town where these
men had gained what was to them a fortune,
there lived a Yankee in the house where his
father and grandfather had been born. The
Native Born had an income of $15 a week
when Nimka and Bochenko arrived in town
in search of employment, and at the end of
the ten years it had increased to $16. Yet,
aside from a small insurance policy that he
kept paid up, the Yankee had not a cent to
show for his labors when the Polanders drew
their money from the savings banks; and he
had worked industriously all the time, and
had practised frugality with his small family.
It was the Native Born who told me about
Nimka and his companion's savings, and I
put the question to him: "How did they
do it?"
He replied ruefully: "They didn't live."
But didn't they? Living in expectation
while the Native Born lived in the knowledge
of an unsatisfactory condition, who is to say
that they had not a mental as well as a finan-
cial balance in their favor?
Nimka and Bochenko, in their own land,
had been burdened with a peasant's poverty
and lack of resources. The Native Born,
several thousand miles away, found himself
in as discouraging a predicament, though his
environment was upon a higher plane of
living. Nimka and his friend, finally spurred
on by an ambition that God gives his people
as an antidote to their poverty, finally set sail
for a new land, and in due time settfed within
sight of the Native Born's homestead. It
mattered not to them that he had a problem
as acute as their own. They were seeking
opportunity, and were intent upon finding it;
and for the next ten years they lived upon the
social frontier, denying themselves luxuries
and often ordinary comforts, that when they
returned to their home-land it might be with
full purses and the knowledge of complete
success.
But let us pass to the citation of other human
documents. There is Annie Anastriga, a
Polish girl, still a new-comer. She found
employment in a woolen- mill at an average pay
of $6.20 a week. At the end of fourteen
months she had a bank-book showing $150 to
her credit, and was well-dressed on Sundays
and holidays.
But this is another example of an unmarried
worker, you argue. We will pass, then, to
Joseph Mardust, who came over from th^
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HOW IMMIGRANTS SOLVE THE COST OF LIVING
North of Europe twelve years ago, and began
work in a factory at $6 a week, which was the
highest wage he received for eight years. He
was raised to $9 when good times came, and
upon this he soon married a girl of his own
nationality. It was necessary now for him to
engage a whole tenement; and though both
he and his wife had saved a considerable sum
of money, their household equipment when
they started consisted of one bed, two chairs,
a table, a stove, and a few dishes and cooking
utensils. They decided to rent two of their
rooms; and they secured seven boarders —
four for one room, and three for the other.
What these boarders really engaged was a
fourth or a third of an empty room, and into
this each one moved a bed — bought second-
hand in the majority of cases — and prepared
to board himself, or herself. Mrs. Mardust
did the actual cooking upon her stove, at a
charge of a few cents a week. It was under-
stood that the boarders should do their wash-
ing at the common tub, or pay for having it
done.
On Sunday all the inmates of the tenement
were able to present a respectable appearance;
and, being Catholics, they were in due time
gathered into the flock of an Irish priest, who
"was shepherd over no less than five nationali-
ties. The Mardusts had no difficulty in
collecting the weekly money due them, and they
were enabled to occupy their dwelling virtually
rent-free. On the first of last May Mardust,
with his little family, closed out their venture
in America, and with a draft for $2,000 on a
foreign bank sailed for "home," intending to
purchase a farm and lead a country gentleman's
life.
I might tell you of a score of similar cases
among the "Polanders." There was John
Pulaski, for one, who came over as an immi-
grant ten years ago and fell into the common
error of trying to conceal his nationality by
changing his name to John "Smith." Six
years ago he married the sister of one of his
friends, and two remarkable children have
been born to them. The oldest, a boy of
five, is fluent in four languages — Polish,
Italian, French, and English. The "Smiths"
decided to take boarders after their first child
was born; but they had begun to rise in the
social scale, and found that there were others
of their class now willing to pay for something
better than the part occupancy of a sleeping
room. So they announced that they would
take boarders "American way"; and they
charged from $3 to $4 a week for room and
board — and they got it. More than one
of their countrymen had decided to remain
in the United States, and consequently relaxed
the rigid economy for saving. But the
"Smiths" put a small fortune aside, and have
gone back to their own land, carrying
with them American children, and American
ideas.
Five years ago Zydor Banas came to the
United States from the Polish province of
Galicia in Austria. He was twenty years
old, spoke only a few words of English, and
landed without an extra dollar. He found em-
ployment in a factory until he could learn the
language and save a little money. Now,
at the end of the five years, he owns a suc-
cessful bakery, and is worth $5,000. Three
years ago his brother Emil came over under
similar circumstances. He, too, went into
the mills, studied the language and the customs
of the people about him, and is already in
business for himself as a photographer, having
bought out an established studio. These
young men are good types of the ambitious
immigrants who remain in the mills only long
enough to get out of them, and who have all
the instincts that lead to good citizenship.
During the depression of 1908, Greek adults
worked in New England mills for fifty cents a
day, and were glad to find employment even at
that wage. To-day, they are receiving the
regular schedule, and are again saving money,
though the American is still crying out against
the high cost of living and the decreasing pur-
chasing power of his dollar. How do they
doit?
Let us take the case of Paraskaves Stephan-
akos, who came here from the province of Mace-
donia. He landed in Boston with just enough
money to get by the inspectors, and the first
thing that he did after his admission was to
purchase an inexpensive suit of American
clothes. He did this upon the advice of a
countryman who had met him, and who was
to take him to one of the manufacturing cities
inland.
Stephanakos's friend took not only him,
but ten of his fellow immigrants on the follow-
ing day, and organized them into a " chamber."
A tenement was secured for $12 a month,
and the dozen men set up communistic house-
keeping. Each was to have an equal share
in the "chamber," with the right to sell his
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12815
interest if he desired to withdraw at any time.
Such furniture as was purchased was in
greater part second-hand. An account was
opened at a Greek baker's, and another at a
Greek butcher's. . On Saturday the per capita
cost of the club's living expenses was figured
out, and the accounts were paid.
Stephanakos was not successful in obtain-
ing work during the first week, nor were all
of his associates; but the club carried them
until they had found a place in the mills, when
they paid up their indebtedness. The average
cost of living for a week came to about $1.50 for
each man, to which twenty-five cents might be
added for his share of the rent. Even on a $5
wage this afforded a good margin for saving,
when a man was fairly started.
Although these men had not been accus-
tomed to much of a meat diet at home, they
found that the hard work required it here, and
that in the end it was the cheapest kind of food
for the principal meal of the day. So, after
a day in the shops, with bread and perhaps a
piece of cheese for lunch, they would cook a bit
of meat with a vegetable at night, and enjoy it
from their common hoard. On Saturday
half-holidays, and on Sundays, they often had
something of a feast.
At the end of a ye jr Stephanakos changed his
name to Peter Brown, and began to make plans
for the future, when he should have enough
capital to warrant leaving the mills. He
saw about him men who within a few years
had made enough to buy reai estate, to open
stores in business streets beyond the Greek
quarter, to patronize American tailors, and to
fraternize with Americans. The more pros-
perous among them were driving automobiles;
several had married American girls; instead
of dodging the poll-tax assessed against them,
they were becoming naturalized.
At the end of the second year, Peter Brown
left the "chamber" and joined a smaller club,
taking his meals at one of the Greek restaur-
ants. This cost him $2 for his food, and
there was plenty of it: stews, roasts, potatoes,
tomatoes, and an abundance of bread.
Just what Peter will make of himself I do
not know. Very likely he will marry and
remain here, for he is a likely fellow, of a good
family, and will not be content to stay long
in the mill. The family unit is very strong
among the Greeks, and any man whose sister
desires to marry a respectable fellow of her
own nationality will do his best to give her
a good dowry.
I have heard about it in the Greek coffee
houses at night: "So-and-so is to be married
next week, and her brother is giving her a
$500 dowry." Such a marriage occurred in
Manchester, N. H., recently, in which the
bride brought $1,100 to her husband; and
every cent of it had been earned in the cotton
mills, the girl herself contributing to the sum.
REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN
PAINTER
Last article
PARIS AND ROME
BY
ELIHU VEDDER
I SIMPLY left New York as a bird flies away
on finding the door of its cage open. And
yet I looked back on friends and kind-
nesses received and loves left behind with
sadness. These, as I left, stood out with
more clearness, as the towers and spires of the
town stood out above the dim mass of build-
ings below, seen in the distance. Soon all
was lost in the mist of the approaching night,
as the good ship Lafayette bore me into an
equally misty future. The New York I
left had no statue of Liberty then, but had
plenty of license instead; and baby sky-
scrapers were just beginning to rear their
heads, with high flagstaffs and eagles scream-
ing against the blue sky they were soon to
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
block from the view of the busy ants running
about in the streets far below.
The first fact I met with in Paris was that
I was very lonesome and wretched. The
first days are to me as a gloomy blank. I
then sought a studio and was considered
lucky in getting one in the Avenue Frochet
— leading out of the Rue Pigalle. It was
a little place with trees and an iron gateway,
and was considered quite the proper thing.
A son of the great Isabey, the marine painter,
had a studio there, as did also a very friendly
portrait painter; but the spell of my French
bohemian days was broken beyond repair,
and I never took kindly to the dark and stuffy
studios and the gloom of Parisian winters.
The house was a rabbit-warren and I burrowed
in it, with the vision of Italy ever before my
eyes. And then the French were not as they
had been before the war, and their "Pardon,
Monsieur" was now equivalent to our "you
be damned!" Then again, these French
artists could see nothing in my work, for it did
not resemble that of anyone they knew, and
so they could not classify me. The French
have little respect for anything they cannot
classify — which explains their slow recogni-
tion of Corot and of Millet
Having arranged my few belongings so as
to give a semblance of comfort to the studio
and the litde bedroom above, I determined to
go to my friend Green in England, and see
what I could do to help cheer him up. I
had written to him that I would share my
windfall with him — that the half of it was his,
for so I understood friendship in those days.
Would I do it now? Not much. It would
diminish the widow's third. But there was no
question of a widow then, for there was no
wife. But what am I saying — no question
of a widow? Did I not see with my own
eyes, in tea leaves in the bottom of the cup
of a wise lady, that I was to marry a rich
widow — a Spanish widow? Not only that
— but was I not at that very time circling
like a moth about a very beautful and rich
widow? Do not long rides in the twilight in
the Bois de Boulogne — winter twilights,
and in a luxurious carriage — predispose the
mind to languishing thoughts? It do! It
do! But it was not to be, from the simple
fact that there was another who was to be.
And so I went way down to some beautiful
county in England and found the poor friend
erf my Florentine days. The struggle had
been too hard for him; I pass over the family
tragedy, for there was one. This bright boy,
whose drawings were as spirited as those of
Couture himself — had given up his dreams
and was painting litde story pictures in the
vein of Edouard Fr&re, and as the dealers
bought them readily, he was not in want, for
he painted up to the day of his death. I com-
forted him and, like a good surgeon, removed
the fear of hell which the kind and good
family he lived with was pumping into him,
and I believe I left him prepared and strength-
ened for the change which was soon to come.
And so back to Paris again, mighty sad.
After getting back to my studio in Paris, I
met Hunt and Coleman and some others
of the old students of Couture. Coleman had
just arrived from New York and was expect-
ing his mother and, particularly, some nice
girls whom he had met on the steamer. In
the meanwhile we made a trip into Brittany,
stopping first at Dinan and then at Vitr£ on
our way back to Paris, where we found his
mother and the girls duly installed.
Hunt and his family having gone to Dinan,
Charley Coleman and I joined him. We
found or made a large studio on the ground-
floor of an old house. It was literally the
ground floor, for the floor was the ground,
and Hunt delighted in it You could make
holes and pour in your dirty turpentine and
fill them up again, and generally throw things
on the floor; and Hunt used to clean his brushes
by rubbing them in the dirt and dust I
remember his once saying: "Wouldn't you
like to take that mud in the road and make a
picture with it?" The simplicity of Millet
was stroiig upon him in those days and affected
his art the rest of his life. Painted with mud
— why not? It would go well with other
novelties. It reminds me of a painter I once
knew who, when painting a hillside from
Nature — of a rather peculiar color — went
to the hill, got a lot of the earth, had it ground
up, and used it on his picture.
But soon there arose a strong wind that was
to bear me southward, as poorly provisioned
as before, but with the feeling that once back
in Italy I should be more at home, and that
things would come out right in the end. At
that time there was a man in Paris who con-
templated tampering with pictures. He had
formed a firm, and the firm bought from me
a litde picture, "Girl with a Lute," painted
because I had bought a lute and wished to
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12817
justify my extravagance. I got for it $200,
but it was sold afterward in Boston for $750;
thus all were made happy. Also they bought
"Coast on a Windy Day," $150, and agreed
to take at $200 apiece the nine small pictures
forming the series of the " Miller and his Son."
This, however, never happened, for the firm
dissolved soon after; but the hopes did just
as well as the money would have done, for
with them and $300 from a sale in America I
found myself in possession of $650, plus hopes.
Would you believe it? On this hint I spoke
and was accepted. And so with a light heart
and a lighter purse, in company with C. C. C.
and his good mother and the dear Girl, I went
toward the promising — if not the promised —
land.
I find it somewhat difficult to tell how I came
to stay so long in Italy. It can be truly called
staying, for I never contemplated settling here.
The staying began in those days when people
traveled with their couriers or passed the whole
winter here, and also bought pictures; and
we were all young, and life was pleasant, and
I made a living. Then the children were
born and I could not afford to break up here
and go home to begin all over again. I had
only my father living, and he lived in an impos-
sible place, while my brother was in Japan
and contemplated joining me here.
For years I had furniture fastened only with
screws so that it could be taken apart when the
time came for going home, but I finally had
to glue it together, and it must have been then
that I began to stick more closely to Rome.
There is no end to the things that I could have
done, and it makes what I have done seem a
small matter. Had there been two of me made
exactly alike, I most certainly would have had
one go home while I waited to see how he
turned out. As it is, I am still sitting on the
fence, and from that vantage can see how
much there is to be said in favor of both sides.
And now it does not so much matter. I am
amply provided with burial lots, having five —
three in America and two here, one of which is
an ancient one; and yet I am sitting on the
fence, hoping that it may turn out that I am
fundamentally right
On my arrival in Rome I at once hunted
up Rinehart. He received me with open
arms; and, being in the same building with
his friend Rogers, introduced me. Rogers
said at once: "Come and dine with us
to-night and I mil have some of the boys in
to meet you." Of course I accepted with
pleasure, as well as an invitation to breal:
with Rinehart at Nazzari's next moim.
And then I did what I seem fated to do ...
least once on arriving at any town — com-
mitted the great social sin of forgetting an
engagement. It was thus: the hotel air
did not agree with my modest purse and I
set to work at once hunting up a room and
a studio. Finally, tired out and hungry, I
went to the Lepri, had a good dinner, went
to bed, and slept like a top until late next
morning.
The first one I met in the morning was
Rinehart. "What kept you from coming
to the dinner last night? We were all there
and waited an hour for you." What could I
say? "And how about that breakfast at
Nazzari's with me?" Again — what could
be said? However, I explained, and Rine-
hart forgave, and turned the breakfast into a
lunch; after which I went to Rogers and made
a clean breast of it. He sort of forgave me —
but there was Mrs. R. Well, it took the
greater part of a year to live it down, but peace
was finally established, and they became and
remained my good friends for ever after.
Everything has been told about Rome that
can be told. Of course, socially, there were
those at the top, and those climbing, and those
content to be where they were; there were
those who rode in their own carriages, and
their inseparable companions — those who
always rode in the carriages of others. And
so forth, and so forth; but the distinction was
not so marked then as now, and I dare say
that all who wish to remember will confess that
we were all much happier then than now. *
But then again, all were younger and all were
alive — which I am sorry to say is not the
case at present.
As for Society — no man can do a thing
well unless he likes it. Had I tried to cultivate
Society I should have failed. I never go out
into Society but sooner or later something
disagreeable takes place. In fact, I am happy
out of it and wretched in it, and so am the last
person to write about it. This will be a
disappointment to my unknown friends, but
will not surprise those who know me. And
so I have settled that question. Thackeray
wrote well about snobs because he liked them.
All people in Society are not snobs by any
means, but there is where you will be most
liable to be taken unawares, 90 I keep out
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
To me they are not amusing — therefore
like Job I will hold my peace — only, were I
like him, I should say it over and over again,
varying the wording.
Some men commencing life in poverty
become parsimonious when they finally be-
come successful; others become extravagant.
Rinehart was inclined to be the latter. He
had that bad habit of under-rating himself:
he was afraid to seem afraid of alluding to
the hardships of his early years, and therefore
spoke too often of them. I took occasion to
give him a bit of good advice once, and think
that he acted on it. I said, " Rinie, you have
nothing to be ashamed of. It is true that you
worked in a stone-cutter's yard with very low
companions — especially humiliating in the
South — but you did not naturally belong in
that condition. No one wants to hear about
that It only pains them, and can't be agree-
able to you, so drop it once for all. We like
you for what you are." I think it affected
him — at least I didn't hear much about his
early days after that.
Rinehart was very generous. He was deeply
impressed with the kindness of people to him,
and was never tired of showing his gratitude.
He also never went back on a friend. He
was always, whenever you saw him, wildly
exuberant; yet he was very serious and pains-
taking in his Art when alone, and sufficiently
canny in his money affairs to lay aside his
earnings, and especially wise in putting them
into such good hands as those of his friend
Walters, where they prospered until the Rine-
hart Fund is the result. I do not believe
Rinehart ever needed to call on Walters for
one cent, but he had the assurance of a staunch
and reliable friend back of him, and it made
all the difference in the world. It gave him
that peace of mind which is in itself such a help
to good work.
He went back on his friends in one par-
ticular, however. He was fond of expatiating
to them on his intention of being buried in
Rome, and how he was going to leave a fund
that would enable them yearly to pour cham-
pagne on his grave — yet he was persuaded
to have his body taken home. He seemed
always to feel that he would die young. He
had a habit when dining, no matter where, of
throwing out his hands; then, of course, all
the glasses in his vicinity went by the board.
This habit gave his dearest lady friend, Mrs.
H., an opportunity for showing her mag-
nanimity. She was seated next to him, wear-
ing a new Worth dress; he indulged in one of
his displays and completely deluged the dress
with red wine. He was in despair, but she
comforted him by saying it was an old thing
that she was trying to wear out, and that she
was glad it happened, as it gave her a good
excuse for getting rid of it.
And that was it He was always breaking
things and always asking pardon. And this
was his way until the very last. When he was
dying, surrounded by his grief-stricken friends,
his very last act was to throw out his arms in the
old way, sweep a glass off the night-stand, and
say, as he heard it break, "I beg your pardon."
He had always been pardoned in this world,
and I daresay that it was not denied him in the
next I will take my chances with Rinie.
My caffe greco days were the three years
spent in working and waiting for the event
of my marriage. When that took place, of
course, the caffe was changed for the hos-
pitable houses of our friends — some older,
some younger. We belonged to the young
set, but the sets dovetailed together very
harmoniously. I knew very little, for instance,
of the Gibson period — although I knew all
that I wanted to of his fair pupil. I saw the
ascetic Overbeck — walking about in the
scene of his former glory — and old Mr.
Severn, and have since regretted that I did
not realize how much of interest I might have
collected from him of the days of Shelley,
Keats, and Byron. By the way, my friends
George Simmonds and Charley Coleman
installed themselves in the Keats apartment
and we revelled, I fear, somewhat regardless
of the poet — for we were desperately enam-
oured of our own lively lives just then. After
this time came the period of the young married
couples — and dancing and picnics, and strug-
gles and sorrows which came to us all, but
which only served to draw us closer together.
As these digressions are intended to give an
imperfect account of a somewhat imperfect
life, I must give some account of the when
and the where and the why and the how I
made my drawings for the Omar Khayyam.
As I spell the Kyyam always differently, I
shall hereafter simply call him Omar. It is
so the fashion nowadays, in writing a man's
life, to give so much importance to his sur-
roundings that the man himself becomes like
the slender wick of a large wax-candle —
"consumed with that which it was nourished
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12819
'HEAD OF A MAN," BY MR. VEDDKR
by." This is reasonable, but it involves a
certain waste of paper.
Wc were living in Perugia when my friend
Ellis brought me Omar and introduced him
as only Ellis could. Ellis was a man who could
not only so read Chaucer that you understood
him, but he converted him into a musical flow
of melody. He was a man who, once reading
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
1 282 1
MR ELIHU VEDDER
A bronze bust by Charles Reck, which is now on exhibition in the
National Arts' Club, New York City
a long poem, could recite it, and copy it out
for you if you desired. Now this was so far
back that it was in the time when Omar, or
Fitzgerald, was known only to Tennyson and
his friends as "old Fitz," and to few besides.
In the little Villa Uffreduzzi, late in the after-
noon, when the sun had gone off the house,
in the grateful shade, out of an old Etruscan
cup, many were the libations of good wine
poured on the thirsty earth, to go below and
quench the fire of anguish in old Omar's eyes.
Thus was the seed of Omar planted in a soil
peculiarly adapted to its growth, and it grew
and took to itself all of sorrow and of mirth
that it could assimilate, and blossomed out
in the drawings.
To round out the candle — from the Villa
we saw the level plain of the Tiber stretching
to stormy Assisi, always involved in clouds and
strange effects and atmospheric troubles, such
as followed in the moral world the advent of
its great Saint. We, however, sat in the
peaceful twilight and drank to Omar. I had
my little boy with me, slowly twining himself
about my heart with tendrils never more to
be relaxed. His mother, proud of her two
boys, had gone home and returned with but one.
In Rome a little daughter came, and she was
brought to the Villa Ansidei, to which we had
removed in the meantime. It had the same
great view, and the same cloud effects over
the plain and on the great hill of Assisi are
shown in many a sketch made at that time.
At the Villa Uffreduzzi all was pleasure —
and so it was down at the other villa for a
time. In those days I painted dances and
picnics — and girls weaving golden nets —
until the day came when my little boy had
to depart. Then followed the various attempts
to banish even the memory of him, for the sake
Cop} ri;s'ht. 1890. !iy Curtis & Cametuu
THE CUP OF DEATH," BY MR. VEDDER
" So when that Angel of the Darker Drink
At last shall meet you by the River's brink
And, offering his cup, invite your soul
Forth to your lips to quaff— thou shalt not shrink."
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
12823
of others. He was placed in a cell in the wall
of the cemetery of Perugia, in full view of the
house — so that he was never out of sight
as well as never out of heart — and then I
had designs for pictures, but I have never
heard how they turned out. We drifted apart.
On one of my trips home, seeing that other
people were making books I thought — Why
"THE CRUCIFIXION," BY MR. VEDDER
painted a sketch that I never show. And then
we gave up the villa and passed the summers
elsewhere.
Once knowing Omar, I always intended
to paint something in his vein. Ellis also
not make one myself? And of course, Omar
came into my mind; and the more I thought
of it, the more the idea pleased me. So I
mentioned it to the art editor of one of the
principal magazines in New York; he said:
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REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN PAINTER
"THE STAR OF FORTUNE," BY MR. VEDDER
From a medal made for the architects and artists who designed the buildings and decorations for the Chicago Exposition
"Yes, yes: take something popular and it
might do very well!" I stared at him — and
that magazine did not get the Omar drawings.
In Boston, Mr. Houghton listened to my
scheme and asked: "But who and where is this
Omar?" I said that wras natural; he was
too near; he only published the poem. To
make a long story short, he agreed to bring
out the book, and on the way back to Rome
I thought it all out. In three weeks I had
divided the verses into groups and settled on
the subjects of the drawings, and commenced
making them. I was somewhat wise also;
I did not begin at the beginning and go through,
but dipped in here and there throughout the
book, so that they should not begin well and
"peter out," or begin ill and improve, but
were kept as even as moods and circumstances
would permit; but they boiled out, and I kept
the fire hot, and they were (as is stated at the
end of the book) "Commenced May, 1883;
Finished March, 1884."
It may be interesting to know that all the
money which enabled me to make the drawings
was borrowed from an ever-kind American
banker in Rome at 12 per cent. You see, he
cast up his accounts every three months, and
compounded things. On my wife expostu-
lating he said: "If I couldn't make 24 per
cent. I had better shut up shop."
To those ivho object to the work — and
there are those who do — I will only say that
it is selling yet — a poor argument, but it
must suffice.
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THE NEGRO AT THE
NORTH POLE
THE STORY OF THE LAST DASH, TOLD BY
COMMANDER PEARY'S ONLY AMERICAN
COMPANION AT THE TOP OF THE EARTH
BY
MATTHEW A. HENSON
(with photographs by the author)
" Matthew A. Henson, my Negro assistant, has been with me in one capacity or another
since my second trip to Nicaragua, 1887. / have taken him with me on each and all of my
northern expeditions, except the first, in 1886, and also, without exception, on each of my
"farthest" sledge-trips. This position I have given him, primarily because of his adapta-
bility and fitness for the work; secondly, on account of his loyalty. He has shared all the
physical hardships of my Arctic work. He is now about forty years old, and can handle a
sledge better, and is probably a better dog-driver than any other man living except some
of the best of the Eskimo hunters themselves" — Commander Peary in Hamptons Magazine,
January, 1910.
THE last supporting party, Captain
Bartlett's, turned back at 87 degrees
48 minutes north latitude — 132 miles
from the Pole. It was not the tearful parting
that some of the newspapers have represented
it to be. A temperature of 50 degrees below
zero is pretty close to the freezing point of
sentiment, and the only outburst of feeling on
Captain Bartlett's part that I can remember
was his remark that he would be " damn glad"
when his five days were up.
It is true that we gave him a farewell dinner,
but that came about in a very matter-of-fact
way. From noon until three o'clock I had
been occupied with the task of selecting five
teams of the best dogs from our entire collec-
tion. I found one dog that was practically
useless, and him we killed. Wc then madj
THE ESKIMO WALRUS-HUNTERS AT ETAH
The native village is on the edge of the bay near the centre of the shore-lii
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THE NEGRO WHO REACHED THE POLE
"Probably a better dog -driver than any other man living, except some of the best Eskimo hunters themselves"
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TrfE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
12827
a fire with the fragments of one of the sledges
and stewed the dog in melted snow, using a
half of a biscuit-tin as a pot. That was the
farewell feast. We called it "musk-ox,"
and it tasted about as good as an Arctic hare.
We then shook hands with Captain Bartlett
and his boys, and they started back on the
southward trail to the Roosevelt. That left
six of us — the Commander and myself and
four Eskimos, to make the final effort. It
was All Fools' Day, but the coincidence did
not worry us any.
The four Eskimo boys were the best in the
tribe and every one of them knew his par-
of his youth, but We-ah-kuf-she's igloo was
a regular storm-centre. See-gloo stilled the
storm by placidly swapping wives with We-ah-
kuf-she, and both families have lived happily
ever afterward. The two boys trade back
once in a while, however.
O-kee-ah, one of my boys, has a wife, but
her father would not let him take her north on
the Roosevelt. O-tah, my other boy, had a
wife and two fat babies at Etah, but he took
the whole family on the ship. He is a stub-
born fellow and hard to get along with, but
I never have any trouble with the Eskimo
boys. When we came to the big "lead" of
THE "ROOSEVELT" FROZEN IN AT CAPE SHERIDAN FOR THE WINTER
ticular job. All but the youngest, O-kee-ah,
had been with "us on previous expeditions, and
what they do not know about handling
dogs isn't worth finding out. O-tah and
E-ging-wah are brothers, and live at Etah;
See-gloo comes from a village called Koo-kan,
and O-kee-ah is from E-tee-bloo.
See-gloo and E-ging-wah were detailed to
accompany the Commander. See-gloo is the
best all-round boy that we had. He can
always be relied upon and he has a good dis-
position. Just how good his disposition really
is was once shown by his willingness to oblige
his friend We-ah-kuf-she. See-gloo was then
married and living peaceably with the wife
open water that held us up for nearly a week,
O-tah was one of three who wanted to turn
back, fearing to put such a large stretch of
water between themselves and land. By
promising O-tah nearly everything that was-
on the ship, we coaxed him to go on; but the
others played sick and cried all night, so we
let them return.
To make the dash of 132 miles we had five
sledges, each drawn by eight dogs hitched
abreast, the traces (ordinary window-cord)
being about fifteen feet long. Each of the
boys drove a team and I took the fifth. This
was an easy job, for the dogs were thoroughly
trained by this time. (I once had to take
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THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
12829
charge of three large teams that had become
unmanageable. I put the second sledge on
top of the first, with all the dogs hitched abreast
and spread out like a fan, and tied the third
sledge behind as a trailer. If anybody thinks
that it is fun to drive thirty-eight wild Eskimo
dogs, the rival teams fighting half of the time,
let him try it.)
The five sledges were the best of the lot
with which we had started northward. All
of them had been made by me, with ordinary
(5) Only one garment was worn on the legs —
bear-skin trousers lined with thin red flannel.
(6) The feet, like the hands, were protected by
a double covering. Next to the skin was a stock-
ing of Arctic hare, with the fur on the inside. Over
this was worn a kammack of sealskin tanned with-
out the hair. The sole of the kammack was made
from the square-flipper seal.
But the best Arctic clothing that has yet
been devised cannot keep parts of the body
from freezing at times. The warmest weather
:j&>-
\ v-
*'»-. «■•» . mJ&.^ .
'»' ' .iJK*&. .
AN EASY STRETCH ON OLD-FLOE ICE
The sledge with the coil of roj)e (useful in ferrying across leads) is Mr. Henson's
carpenter's tools — and it is no easy task to
make a curved runner with a straight plane.
All our clothing was made by the Eskimo
women on the ship, and it was of the kind
that twenty-odd years of Arctic experience
had proved to be best adapted to low temper-
atures. This is the list of everything that we
had on:
(1) A sleeveless shirt of thin red flannel, reach-
ing to the waist. This was worn next to the skin.
(2) A shirt made out of a blanket.
(3) A koolitahy or coat, of reindeer skin with
the hair on the outside, and with a hood attached.
This was not lined.
(4) The hands were protected by sealskin mitts
with the hair on the outside; another pair of blanket
mitts was worn inside.
that we experienced during this dash was
15 degrees F. below zero (a snow-storm),
and the coldest was 59 degrees F. below.
In 1906, however, it went down to 65 degrees
F. There is always more or less wind, usually
from the west, and this drives the granu-
lated snow into the face and fur-clothing.
During the earlier part of our trip several
members of the party had to turn back
with frozen heels; and during the last stage
each of my boys froze a toe, but I came
through all right.
When one of my boys found that his foot
was freezing, we stopped to thaw it out. His
kammack was stripped off, the stocking with it,
and I pulled up the lower part of my koolitah
and placed the freezing foot against my bare
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12830
THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
A "LEAD," OR STRETCH OF OPEN WATER
These Arctic rivers and lakes are the nightmare of explorers
stomach. It was like putting a piece of ice
there, but there was no other way to save
the foot.
But it is the face that suffers most, for that
cannot be wholly covered. Freezing of the
nose and the whole front part of the face is an
ordinary occurrence. The skin keeps peel-
ing off and freezing again until that part of the
face is like raw beef, and it leaves spots on the
face like smallpox We once devised a fur
CROSSING THIN ICE ON THE FINAL DASH
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THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
1 2831
r"
r*~*r .- *sr«*'
PICKING A WAY THROUGH THE ROUGH ICE OF A PRESSURE-RIDGE
protector to go over the exposed part of the
face, with little openings for the eyes and
nostrils. This looked like a good thing until
we tried it. Then we found that the moisture
from the breath that came up under the pro-
tector caused the fur to freeze to the face —
and when we pulled the protector off, the skin
came with it. When a strong cold wind drives
the snow against the raw flesh, it is torturing.
A man often puts his hand to his face to thaw
it out, and finds blood on his hand when he
takes it off. The bleeding surfaces are cov-
ered over with vaseline at night. A tube of
vaseline, a roller-bandage, and some absorbent
IT TAKES ''PUSH" AS WELL AS
PULL" TO CROSS THE RIDGE
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THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
12833
THE HALT FOR LUNCH, FIFTEEN MILES FROM THE POLE
The man seated bv the stove is Commander Pearv
PACKING THE SLEDGES FOR THE LAST NORTHWARD MARCH
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12834
THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
THE GOAL OF THK CENTURIES
By a curious coincidence, the negative from which this picture was made was at the end of the roll of film and the
word " STOP " is plainly stamped upon the gelatine
cotton made up the emergency outfit that I
carried with me.
FIVE MARCHES TO THE POLE
We were five days on the way to the Pole.
Bright and early on the "morning" of April
2nd, the Commander left the igloo at 87
degrees 48 minutes to set the pace. He was
usually the first to leave the camp, for he had
no sledge to drive; I was the last, in order
to be sure that nothing was left behind. The
Commander's trail was easy to follow, and I
usually caught up with him in an hour or two,
and then generally went ahead.
My own start was most unpropitious, for I
had not been half an hour on the trail when
I had a mishap that almost cost me my life. I
had crossed some "rafters" or small "pressure
ridges," and reached the bottom of the slope
where a "lead" had started to open. Since
INDIAN HARBOR, LABRADOR, AND THK WIRELESS STATION FROM WHICH THK ::
FLASHED TO THE WORLD
WS WAS
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THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
12835
these terms occur frequently, perhaps I had bet-
ter stop long enough to explain what they mean.
A "lead" is a lake or a river of open water,
always extending east and west. It is caused
by large cracks in the ice of the Polar Sea,
the open space widening as the ice-floes drift
apart. When the leads are just forming, we
can jump across or use a sledge as a bridge.
Sometimes we can make a detour to the right
or left and go around them. If the lead is full
of floating ice, we can use a large cake as a
ferryboat and paddle across with our snow-
shoes. A line (which I always carried on the
back of my sledge) is then made fast to the
ice on the opposite bank and one boy paddles
back, fastening the line on this side. The
rest of the party can then be ferried over easily.
If the lead is large and there is no floating
ice, we have to wait until it freezes over and*
forms "young ice."
By and by the two edges of the lead are
brought together again with great force.
(Once, when I had fallen into the water as a
lead was closing, I had the toe of my kammack
cut off as with a pair of shears as I scrambled
out.) The coming together of these edges
forces the young ice upward and forms ridges
which are called "rafters"; sometimes these
are from twenty-five to seventy-five feet high,
and then they are called "pressure-ridges."
To return to the story, my dogs were going
fast as we reached the foot of the ridge, and I
noticed that my sledge sagged as it was going
over the slush. The dags stopped and I
walked around the sledge to see what was the
trouble. As I took hold of the sledge and
began to lift, I suddenly began to sink, and
in a moment was up to my hips in icy water.
It had been fully three months since the date
of my last bath, but I frankly admit that I
was not yet ready for another. Grasping
an ice-floe which was drifting by me, and
crawling up on my stomach, I struggled vigor-
ously and got out. My trousers, of course,
froze instantly, and were as stiff as a board.
I was also wet around the knees. The Eski-
mos helped me beat the ice out of my clothing
with their kidlootoos, but the chill of the
plunge was upon me for a long time. I had
almost the same thing happen to me on the
way back, and in almost the same place.
No further events of importance happened
on the first day. After a march of eighteen
hours, we camped for the "night."
It should be understood that when I speak
of "day" and "night" I refer to the division
of time as marked by our watches. As a
matter of fact, during all of this time there
was no night. It was one continuous period
of daylight, and there was never a time when
the sun was not above the horizon. We could
see it at any hour of the "day" or "night" unless
it happened to be obscured by light clouds.
Perhaps I ought to add that the sun in that
latitude does not cross the sky by traveling
overhead. It goes around the horizon in a
circle, starting low down and gradually rising
for a little distance, and then sinking back
toward the horizon, but never reaching it.
You can look directly at it without hurting the
eyes, and there is no warmth in its rays at all.
HOW AN IGLOO IS MADE
The first thing to be done on stopping at
"night" was to make two igloos, one for the
Commander and his two boys, the other for
my party. The igloo, well made, is a work
of art. We first scrape away the snow, and
cut blocks of ice about eighteen or twenty
inches long and about fifteen inches wide. It
takes forty or fifty of these blocks to make an
igloo. We then lay the ground layer of blocks
in a circle whose diameter is a little longer than
a man. Each succeeding layer is curved in-
ward so that when the fourth layer is in place
the whole structure has been arched over-
head, and is ready for the keystone. The
blocks are so shaped that they dovetail into
each other and make a solid, permanent hut.
We then go on the outside and stop up all of
the "chinks" with snow. It took three of
us about an hour to make an igloo.
The jloor of the hut is, of course, solid ice
covered with snow. A place is cut out just
inside the door, and this leaves the floor as a
sort of platform, so that a man may sit on it
and have room to kick his feet together to keep
them from freezing.
The dogs are left hitched to the sledges until
the igloo is finished. They are then fastened
by hitching them with a line to the ice in such
a way that with one blow of an ice-knife the
whole team can be instantly released and
started off. This is sometimes necessary
because of the sudden breaking-up of the ice.
After the igloo has been finished the dogs are
fed, one pound of pemmican to each dog —
in other words, a man's ration. It is not
necessary to water them, because they eat
the snow. The next thing is to unpack the
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12836
THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
sledges and put the alcohol in the igloo. Then
we beat the snow and ice out of our clothes,
crawl into the igloo, and make tea.
A SUPPER IN THE ARCTIC
The making of tea in an Arctic temperature
is a very simple matter — after you learn how.
Each party was equipped with a "cooker"
(an alcohol stove made in two sections, which
fitted into each other). The first thing is to
get the "water" for the tea. The snow is
scraped off to a depth of from twelve to eigh-
teen inches, and a chunk of ice cut out and
put into the top section, called the "cooler."
Its bottom is perforated so that the water will
trickle down as the ice melts. We do not use
the granulated snow, because the ice melts
more quickly. The water is not salty for the
simple reason that the surface ice is formed of
snow which has melted and then frozen again.
The boy puts six ounces of alcohol in the
little stove and places it under the teapot.
' A piece of tissue-paper is twisted up into the
form of a small wick and inserted into the
alcohol. This is necessary because alcohol will
not vaporize there in the usual way. After
the fire is started and the alcohol begins to
vaporize, the paper wick is taken out.
A can of frozen condensed milk is chopped
into two pieces and one half is placed in the
teapot, and on top of it is put one and a half
tablets of compressed tea. It takes about
ten minutes for the ice to melt, and the tea is
then soon made.
As soon as the tea is ready, half a pound of
pemmican and eight hard ship's-biscuits are
given to each man. There is no variation in
the bill of fare — pemmican and biscuits and
tea make up a menu as unvarying as that of
a boarding-house.
But what is "pemmican?" It is the piice
de resistance of the Arctic — dried beef ground
up fine, mixed with sugar, currants and
raisins, and suet. After being well mixed,
it is poured into tins, compressed, and sealed.
It is very dry and hard to chew. The daily
ration for a man is one pound of pemmican,
one pound of ship's-biscuits, and a quart of
liquid tea. The Eskimo boys receive the same.
Making down our beds is next in order.
My "bed" was a piece of deer-skin about four
feet long and two feet wide. The Commander
used two skins, and each of the boys had a skin
of the musk-ox. Every one had two tins of
pemmican for a pillow.
After tea we lost no time in going to sleep
while our bodies were warm. There was no
sitting up around a campfire, for there is noth-
ing to make a fire with; alcohol is too precious
to use for any purpose except making tea.
After two or three hours of sleep, a man usually
wakes up cold, and he must then get up and
beat his feet together and slap himself to start
the circulation. Then he goes to sleep again.
Sometimes he wakes up and finds a hard lump
on his face — a frozen spot. The thing then
to do is to take a hand out from under the
koolitah (we sleep with both hands inside)
and thaw out the frozen spot with the palm of
the hand.
One curious thing is that the breath of the
sleeping men rises to the roof, freezes, and
drops back into our faces in the form of a light
snow. Sometimes we all have to get up to
keep from freezing. There is no making of
tea during the "night"; it is made only at
regular intervals.
We got up usually about six o'clock in the
"morning," and O-tah, who was my tea-boy,
at once started the fire in the alcohol stove.
After breakfast we usually marched from
eight to ten hours, and then stopped about
twenty-five minutes for lunch. Lunch con-
sisted of tea and three ship's-biscuits — no
pemmican. The ordinary day's march on
the way north was fourteen or fifteen hours.
THE MONOTONOUS TRAIL TO THE POLE
April 3rd was another glorious day, with a
slight easterly wind. The ice was so rough
and jagged that we had to use our pickaxes
constantly to cut a trail. A great many leads
were encountered, but we had no difficulty
in crossing them. Once the runner of E-ging-
wah's sledge cut through the "young ice,"
but the two Eskimos acted quickly and saved
the sledge and dogs from being submerged.
This averted a very serious accident, for that
particular sledge contained the Commander's
sextant and other instruments very necessary
to the success of the expedition.
On April 4th and 5 th, the monotony of
the trail was unbroken by any incident of
importance. There was the same laborious
struggle over pressure-ridges, the same detour
to the east or west to avoid crossing a lead,
or the same skilful manipulation of the sledges
in going directly across the running water. It
should be remembered that this part of the
earth's surface has no visible life of any kind.
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THE NEGRO AT THE NORTH POLE
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There is nothing on the landscape except snow
and ice. There are no birds in the air and no
living thing in the sea, so far as we could tell.
We were the only creatures on the landscape.
On April 6th we crawled out of our igloos
and found a dense mist hanging over every-
thing. Only at intervals, when the sun's
rays managed to penetrate the mist, could we
catch even a glimpse of the sky. Estimating
the distance that we had come during the last
four days, we figured that, unless something
unusual happened to us during the course of
this day, we should be at the Pole before its
close.
We noticed that conditions were much better.
We were no longer compelled to use our
pickaxes to hack the trail through the ragged
ice, nor did we have to bodily lift the loaded
sledges over the rough ridges. Before us
stretched large, heavy floes, thirty feet and
more in height Rough ice appeared at the
intersection of each floe, but the crossing was
easy. The trail was so easy that we made
much more rapid progress than on any previous
day. About 10:30 we saw that we were com-
ing into a ridge forty or fifty feet long. I was
driving ahead, and was swinging around to the
right to go over it. The Commander, who
was about fifty yards behind, called out to me,
and said that we would go into camp. We
were in good spirits, and none of us were cold,
so we went to work and promptly built our
igloos, fed our dogs, and had dinner. The
sun being obscured by the mist, it was impos-
sible to make observations and tell whether
or not we had actually reached the Pole, so
the only thing we could do was to crawl into
our igloos and go to sleep
The Arctic sun was shining brightly on the
morning of April 7th, when we crawled out
of our igloos. The temperature was 33 degrees
F. below. Expectation was written on every
face, the boys included, for we knew that obser-
vations could be taken at noon, and we should
at last know whether we had reached the goal.
The Eskimos and I had plenty of work to do
in repairing the sledges, which had suffered
from our rapid marches over untried roads.
The Commander waited with impatience for
the hour of noon to arrive, and then began to
make his observations. These were made at
three different points, and while he was at work
on his calculations, we were detailed to recon-
noitre in different directions for the purpose
of ascertaining if any land could be seen.
The results of the first observations showed
that we had figured out the distance very
accurately, for when the Flag was hoisted over
the geographical centre of the earth, it was
located just behind our igloos. Observations
taken later in the day showed that the Flag
should be placed about 150 yards to the west-
ward of the first position — on account of the
continual eastward movement of the ice.
We had brought with us a reel of 1,500
fathoms of steel piano-wire with which to take
soundings. We could not do this exactly at
the Pole, for the reason that there were no
leads, so we sounded the lead a little this side
of the Pole. The 1,500 fathoms ran out
and there was no bottom. We then started
to pull the wire up, but the ice cut it in
two after we had drawn up about seventy-five
fathoms.
The flag which the Commander hoisted
was the same which we had carried throughout
all the expeditions. A piece had been cut out
each time that "Farthest North'' was reached
— at Mt. Morris Jesup, at Cape Thomas Hub-
bard, at Cape Columbia, and at 87 degrees
6 seconds. Pieces of white cloth had been
sewn in to take the place of the fragments cut
out. At the Pole the Commander cut out
a narrow strip running diagonally across the
flag; this strip was placed in a little tin box that
had contained a spool of kodak film, and was
left at the Pole.
The hoisting of the Flag was not the occa-
sion of any riotous outburst of feeling. The
Commander merely said in English: "We will
plant the- Stars and Stripes at the North Pole"
— ancj the Stars and Stripes were planted.
Speaking in the Eskimo language, I then pro-
posed three cheers, which were, heartily
given.
The Eskimos showed their delight by jump-
ing around and exclaiming: " Ting neigh tima
ketisherl" which means, "We have reached
here at last!"
I suppose, if the truth were known, their
rejoicing was not because we had reached
the North Pole, but because we had arrived at
the place from which we would start back
for home.
As I stood there at the top of the world and
thought of the hundreds of men who had lost
their lives in the effort to reach it, I felt pro-
foundly grateful that I, as the personal attend-
ant of the Commander, had the honor of
representing my race in thehistoric achievement.
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JOHN FISKE IN "THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA"
WHAT MR. ALDRICH WROTE IN "SONGS AND SONNETS"
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A LIBRARY OF AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS
THE UNIQUE COLLECTION OF MANY THOUSAND VOL-
UMES GATHERED BY MR. JAMES CARLETON YOUNG
BY
HERBERT RANDOLPH GALT
ON A June day in Athens thirty years
ago, a young Iowan, James Carleton
Young, sat on the steps of the Par-
thenon and wondered why no one. had yet
gathered under one roof a library composed
exclusively of the world's best literature. He
was young and by no means wealthy; but
he resolved on that historic spot to undertake
the prodigious work — a pretty big task when
he had first to make the fortune required for
its fulfilment.
"The months I had spent in the palaces and
galleries of the Old World," he said, "had per-
mitted me to become somewhat acquainted with
their treasures, and I recalled that in every col-
lection Art was represented by its masterpieces.
The single idea had been only to preserve the
best in Art. Visits to the great libraries of the
world, moreover, had convinced me that com-
paratively little attention had been paid to the
collection of the best literature; the measure of
excellence was chiefly ascertained by the number
of volumes that the library contained.
*"My conception of an ideal library would be
one that embraced all the best literature of the
world for all time, each volume selected for its
literary merit. Such an undertaking, however,
could not be accomplished within the lifetime
of an individual. As I was desirous of under-
taking a work that could -be, in a great measure
at least, completed in my lifetime, I conceived
the plan of bringing together under one roof the
best literature of my time, in the original editions
when possible, each volume to be characteristically
inscribed by the author. For only by means of an
inscription does the volume become absolutely
unique, and have always attached to it something
of the intimate personality of the writer."
Ten years passed. During this period
Mr. Young gave most of his attention to the
farm-land business which eventually made
him at one time among the largest individual
owners of arable lands in America, But the
idea of the library was ever before him, and
shortly after his removal to Minneapolis in
1 89 1 he found himself in a position to begin
the work to which he had dedicated his life
and his fortune.
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12839
Its beginnings were small. The first authors
approached regarded him as an autograph
nuisance, and declined his requests for inscrip-
tions— some politely, some very impolitely.
But Young's heart and soul were in his purpose.
He knew what he wanted, and it was some-
thing more than an autograph. With infinite
patience and tact he explained his idea.
Presently a few authors were won over.
Their books formed the nucleus. To follow
the evolution of the library; to relate the
literary conquests of America, England, France,
Spain, Germany, Russia, Latin- America, Italy,
Scandinavia, even Japan and China and such
slightly-known countries as Iceland, Persia,
and Australia — all this is material for a
volume, which, by the way, Mr. Young is
writing. It is sufficient for these purposes to
say that he now has stored at his former
Minneapolis residence, now used as an office
and storehouse for the books, and in fire-proof
vaults in various capitals of Europe, a very
large percentage of the best contemporary
literature of the entire world, each volume
inscribed by the author. To such proportions
have the affairs of the library grown that
to-day they require the undivided attention
of a librarian and eight assistants (as clerks,
cataloguers, stenographers, and translators),
besides special agents in nearly every country
under the sun; he is also assisted by critics,
university professors, and even some authors
who have become fired with the enthusiasm of
the collector and are working ardently in his
cause."
Every man who has understood his purpose
has become his aide. William E. Norris, the
British novelist, after a visit to Mr. Young
and a partial inspection of his already remark-
able library, interested his brother-in-law, the
late Sir Arthur Havelock, who happened to
be Governor-General of Tasmania; the result
was that Mr. Young was able to obtain the
best books of that distant confederation, still
scarcely familiar to the literary world. John
Barrett, Director-General of the Bureau of
American Republics, also became interested
after a visit to Mr. Young, and lent his aid in
securing the (reoperation of the Latin- American
ambassadors, publishers, ahd writers. This
resulted in the gathering of what will doubtless
be the finest collection of South American
literature extant. Queen Elizabeth of Rou-
mania, known to Literature as "Carmen
SyWa," has been one of Mr. Young's warmest
admirers and most tireless allies in Europe.
Mme. Ragozin, the Russian historian, pub-
lished in the Novye Vremya an appeal to the
patriotism of literary Russia, and herself
urged Count Leo Tolstoy to inscribe his
books. Mathilde Serao, the gifted Italian
woman, and Don Armando Palacio Valdes, the
Spanish writer, did likewise. Mile. Helfoe
Vacaresco, the Balkan poetess and a laureate
of the French Academy, for many years maid-
of-honor to Queen Elizabeth, spent months
in the capitals of Europe, obtaining books
^7 tx-UU^At-r^fj
t;»«*»y-
f^Cc*****"^
" ICI-BAS," BY SULLY PRUDHOMME
A poem written on the fly-leaf of the first volume of a rare set of his
books. The translation, by Prof. Le Roux, of the University of Minne-
sota, is as follows :
Here Below
Here below aic all the lilacs dying,
Short are the songs of the birds;—
I dream of summers lasting
Always.
Here below are the lips meeting
Without any traces leaving; —
I dream of kisses lasting
Always.
Here below are men weeping,
Their friendships or loves lost; —
I dream ot lovers living
Always.
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A LIBRARY OF AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS
(u+JiAAAl *
Oufc
FROM AN ITALIAN NOVELIST
This inscription in Italian is from the pen of Antonio Fogazzaro.
Translated, it is as follows : M I was pleased to add a page of the present
day to * Piccolo Mondo Moderno,' but after publishing the addition I
was not able to live in my city!
"August, 1006."
and inscriptions of those authors who could
only be won over by a personal appeal. In
1902 the Paris Figaro declared Mr. Young
"Le Roi des Livres," a title which has since
stuck to him in Europe — where, curiously
enough, more is known about him and his
work than in this country.
With the assistance and encouragement of
such people as these; by the aid of our consuls
and ambassadors abroad; and as the result of
many expeditions to Europe to search the
bookstalls for rare editions, and to call in person
on the authors, Mr. Young has finally obtained,
besides the books themselves, an extraordinary
bibliography, and a list of names and addresses
of authors which fills half a dozen thick type-
written volumes. This list alone furnishes
some idea of the magnitude of the work. As
each author changes his residence the list
is corrected, thus being always up to date. It
must be the most astonishing list in existence.
It is the result of eighteen years of effort.
When an author is approached for the first
U H* tnUu **& <">& fir «****y ,
ON THE FLY-LEAF OF THOMAS HARDY'S "FAR FROM
THE MADDING CROWD »
time, a circular stating the object of the library
is sent to him, together with a personal letter
requesting the inscription. (Both circular
and letter are in the writer's own language.)
Upon receiving his consent, and a list of his
published works and the dates of publication,
the books are bought and sent to him — trans-
portation prepaid both ways, and in a series
of wrappers which reduces the writer's trouble
to a minimum. As each new book thereafter
is issued by this writer, it is purchased, sent
to him, inscribed, and returned. A perfectly
organized system of filing and indexing,
operating almost automatically, sees to that
Indeed this library has become a great, method-
ical, well-ordered business, world-wide in
scope. The correspondence alone reaches each
year a total of about 5,000 letters. Mr. Young
tried to answer them all personally, and
suffered an attack of neuritis. Now his
secretaries, under his personal supervision,
are charged with this labor. Most of the
letters come from authors, and a selection
of perhaps ro,ooo of them forms an interesting
addition to the collection itself. There is
also a large collection of autograph manu-
scripts, many of them now beyond price, and
hundreds of autographed photographs which
have been sent to Mr. Young by various
celebrities. Many of these are hung about
his home library. Eventually they will form
a part of the collection.
Nobody, not even their owner, knows how
many volumes are in the library; the cataloguing
is still far from complete. But there are
tens of thousands of them. Ask him what it
all is worth in money and he will make you
the same answer he made recently to the
agent of a wealthy collector who approached
him with a proposition to purchase. It was:
"They are priceless."
When the collection is complete, or as
nearly complete as possible, Mr. Young
intends to present it either to some American
university or to the nation. He has not yet
decided upon its final disposition, but his
friends are urging him to bestow it on the
Congressional Library at Washington, where
it would be accessible to the general public
under reasonable restrictions, and to biogra-
phers who will naturally find in it much
valuable material. He is considering this,
among other suggestions that have been made.
There are so many and such fascinating
literary secrets in these unique books that there
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A LIBRARY OF AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS
12841
is sure to be a world-wide craning of necks
when their pages are finally opened. Mr.
Young has discouraged all publicity on account
of his personal disinclination, and because
he preferred to finish his work before talking
about it, so that very few Americans know
anything about it, and, save a few personal
friends, none has inspected it. This adds
piquancy, for example, to the fact that, on
the three blank pages in the front of his history
of a great European Power, one of the most
distinguished of historians has declared that
it would fall within twenty-five years, giving
his reasons for the opinion. This historian
asked that the book be kept sealed until his
death, and the request is being granted. But
what an interesting prediction to be either
verified or laughed at hereafter!
Then, too, on the fly-leaf of a popular novel
its author announces that the chief character,
a libertine and a drunkard, was drawn from
the life of a celebrated poet. Another novelist
has written a terribly pointed commentary on
American and English critics, declaring that it
remained for those in Germany and France,
even with indifferent translations, to discover
the point of his work. These are only a few
of the things that will make the opening of
the library an event of importance. But
they are all held in strictest confidence
now — these and the idiosyncrasies of the
writers which an acquaintance of nearly
twenty years has revealed to Mr. Young.
He will not tell you, for example, which
novelist it was who refused his request for an
inscription because the novelist hated the
United States; which one refused because he
"made it a point never to oblige anybody";
which essayist wrote a three-page letter explain-
ing that he was too busy to write a ten-line
inscription; or what poet, upon being informed
that this library was to contain the works of
all the greatest poets of the age, replied:
"Do you not know that only six great poets
have lived since Shakespeare, 'and that I am
one of them?" Nor wiU he disclose the name
of the author who refused because Mr. Young,
in addressing him, had inadvertently omitted
the title "Sir" (the novelist having recently
been knighted) . One man sent him an original
manuscript to be published at his expense,
and another offered to dedicate a book to
him for the sum of $2,000, but only Mr. Young
knows who they were and he will not tell.
There was one writer, however, at whose
expense Mr. Young could not but enjoy a
quiet laugh. This man had refused to inscribe,
saying that he did so only for his dearest
friends. A year or so later, in a London
bookstall, Mr. Young found a copy of one of
this author's books,, nicely inscribed to one
of the " dearest friends," and bought it. After-
ward he wrote to the author and mentioned the
circumstance. "At least trust me to value
your book as highly as this * dearest friend'
did," he said. The author admitted that the
laugh was on him, and inscribed his books.
TIMOTHY COLE'S ETCHING OF HIMSELF
Made especially for Mr. Young's copy of " Old English Masters."
The inscription reads ; " The engraver at work, holding his block up to
a mirror to reverse his effect. . . Drawn from the looking-glass for
the Library of J as. C Young, Esq., Brussels, June 6th 1904."
But these few experiences have, according
to the collector, proved the exception rather
than the rule. "My relations with the
writers," he said, "have been most cordial
and pleasant, and most of them have done
more for me than I have had any right to
expect; they have a thousand times gone far
out of their way to oblige and assist me. The
greatest always turned out to be the simplest
and the most unaffected."
This is real praise from a man whose personal
acquaintance with literary people probably
exceeds that of any person living. Scores of them
have stopped at his residence in Minneapolis
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mm www
TOLSTOY'S PHILOSOPHY AS EXPRESSED ON THE FLY-
LEAF OF "ANNA KARENIKA."
It reads as follows: "Man only sees evil under the form of death and
suffering when he takes the law of his carnal and animal existence for
that of his life.
" Far the man who lives according to the laws of his true spiritual
life, there is neither death nor suffering.
" The life of man is an aspiration towards welfare. What he aspires
to is given to him; a life which cannot be death and a welfare that can-
not be evil."
to spend a few days among his books,
and in the pleasant atmosphere of his home;
and many of these have left behind them scraps
of verses and photographs to enrich his col-
lection. On his various journeys to Europe
he has been a guest under many a famous
literary roof-tree, and this interesting personal
relation between artist and bibliophile has in
many cases grown so intimate as to result in
the dedication to him of books, and the
exchange, as gifts, of rare volumes and manu-
scripts. One author sent him his book in all
its stages — rough drafts, manuscript, proof-
sheets, plates, and finally the volume itself.
Of tragedies in this quest there have been
several On Ibsen's desk the day he died
lay first editions of all the great Norwegian's
books, some of which had been obtained with
the greatest difficulty and expense, awaiting
the inscriptions that he had promised to write.
Cesare Lombroso, Italy's celebrated crim-
inologist, who had inscribed all his other books,
died on the day that a copy of his latest work,
" After Death — What ? " was sent him. One
of the last acts of Jules Breton, the French
painter-poet, was to write a message to posterity
on the fly-leaf of his last volume. George
Meredith inscribed even in his last days when
his wife was obliged to steady his hand.
Pleasant and fascinating incidents are asso-
ciated with other volumes. Timothy Cole, the
great etcher, sent Mr. Young a specially bound
copy of his "Old English Masters," with an
etching of himself on the fly-leaf. It is shown
in the accompanying illustration. On the page
opposite the etching Mr. Cole has written a
delightful account of his work.
James McNeill Whistler decorated his
title-pages with characteristic butterflies, and
equally characteristic epigrams. Edmond Ros-
tand, in addition to his jesting inscriptions,
drew on the title-page of "Cyrano De Ber-
gerac" a comical illustration of his long-
nosed hero, which proves that M. Rostand
is a much better poet than pen-and-ink artist.
In "Presidential Problems," the late ex-
President Cleveland wrote a brief but stirring
tribute to the " finest, best, and most generous
people on earth." Another ex-President,
Theodore Roosevelt, said on the fly-leaf of
"The Wilderness Hunters" that he considers
it his best book. In the front of "American
Ideals," another of Mr. Roosevelt's books,
the distinguished author declares that in his
public life he has tried to "practise what he
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A LIBRARY OF AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS
12843
preached" in those essays. Intimate bits of
personal history are revealed by other writers.
In "Fidele," for example, Antonio Fogazzaro,
Italy's famous novelist, writes: "This book,
written by me, is full of true and dear memories
which are carefully veiled,,; and in "Piccolo
Mondo Antico" he says rather pathetically:
"I wrote * Piccolo Mondo Antico ' with a sad
heart because I worked in the remembrance
of my dear ones who are dead."
Whimsical comment, playful verses, serious
reflection, and delightful reminiscences could
be quoted almost indefinitely from the books
of Holger Drachmann, Count Tolstoy, Catulle
Mendes, Emile Zola, Paul Heyse, Ernest
Haeckel, Camille Flammarion, Edmondo
de Amicis, Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Maarten
Maartens, Jos£ Echegaray, Edmund Clarence
Stedman, John Fiske, Paul Bourget, Maxim
Gorky, Jane Barlow, Carducci, Emilia Pardo-
Bazan, Maurice Maeterlinck, Rudyard Kip-
ling, John Morley, Algernon C. Swinburne,
Edmund Gosse, William Watson, W. E.
Henley, James Bryce, Thomas Hardy, J. M.
Barrie, W. E. Lecky, Mrs. Humphry Ward,
William Butler Yeats, Sir Edwin Arnold,
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, F. Hopkinson Smith,
George Brandes, W. D. Howells, Henry Van
Dyke, Richard Henry Stoddard, Frank L.
Stockton — indeed, practically every famous
writer in the world, and some whom Americans
know hardly at all.
Why first editions? You can provoke a
discussion among bibliophiles almost any day
with that question, and it is therefore interest-
ing to know what perhaps the greatest
bibliophile of them all thinks about it.
"My idea," he said, "was to have uni-
formity, and to that end I selected, as far as
possible, original editions. When these were
printed in different series, such as limited
editions on vellum or large paper, I obtained,
whenever I could, the rarest copy. There
are arguments, of course, on both sides of the
question whether the first or the latest revised
edition is the more desirable. There is a
strong sentiment among bibliophiles in favor
of the firsts; they are certainly the product of
the author's first thought on his subject, and
if I had waited for revised editions it might
have been impossible, for obvious reasons,
to secure the inscriptions. I appreciate the
fact that there are many sound reasons for
the revised works, and in some instances I
selected them. For example, I had nearly
all the books in first editions of Mr. Thomas
Hardy, each of which he had inscribed. When
the revised edition of his works was published,
he wrote me that he thought I had made a
mistake; that he considered the revised works
of an author, which gave the results of his
mature thought, much more valuable; and
that, so far as he was concerned, he would
much prefer to have his revised editions in*
V*.
CO i*C Of* Am**. At
__ tV*£f
MAURICE MAETERLINCK'S ENGLISH INSCRIPTION IN
"THE DOUBLE GARDEN"
my library. He offered to re-inscribe them all,
which he did when I sent them to him."
In gathering this library together, the wisest
discrimination has been necessary, of course.
Mr. Young's aim has been to select only the
best in the literature of each country. In the
cases of authors who have apparently attained
a firm place in literary history, all their books
have been included; but, where an author has
written but one book with any claim upon
immortality, that book has been admitted,
and his other books excluded. There are,
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12844
A LIBRARY OF AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS
too, books which critics might deny a place in
a library devoted strictly to the best literature
— for example, the works of some travelers,
explorers, scientists, and the like. But where
these men have really contributed something
to the knowledge and progress of the world —
such men as Sven Hedin, Commander Peary,
and Henry M. Stanley — their books have
been chosen. To dramatic literature the acid
« a4^^ /*.;, <c -w4 7~>, />-
f. & . fom, + frK {*>**) '*+4
K. ^^ *m>4 *&>, A i A/*4
MR. STEDMAN'S INSCRIPTION IN HIS ESSAY ON EDGAR .
ALLAN POE — "THE FIRST 'VELLUM' BOOK BROUGHT
OUT IN AMERICA."
test of literary merit has been applied; no
merely "popular" play has been included.
For all these things, however, Mr. Young
has depended on the best advice he could
obtain — the critics and universities of the
nations. "It would have been rank pre-
sumption," said he, "for me to have under-
taken to say what is, and what is not,
Literature." But he will, if you are fortunate,
select you a poem with excellent discrimination,
and read it to you with fine appreciation,
despite this modest disclaimer.
Any account of this remarkable library
which did not take into consideration the
manuscripts and memorabilia would be incom-
plete. After Zola's death Mr. Young came
into possession of his library of 847 inscribed
volumes, and over 100 of his autographed letters,
many of them relating to his unfulfilled desire
to enter the French Academy. These and a
number of manuscripts which had been pre-
sented to him led eventually to the collection
of MSS. as a feature of the library. Here,
for instance, is the finished draft of one of
Paul Heyse's dramas; G. C. Eggleston's
"Master of Warlock"; several exquisitely
bound volumes of Eugene Field's poems in
manuscript, each poem with the familiar guide- |
line "lead Sharps and Flats to-day"; and a
copy of "Echoes from the Sabine Farm,"
illustrated with original sketches and notes by
Charles Dana Gibson, F. Hopkinson Smith,
and more than thirty other celebrated artists
and writers who were Mr. Field's personal
friends. There are also many other manu-
scripts, constituting the best collection of
Fieldiana extant.
There is also a large and most interesting
collection of manuscripts presented by Carmen
Sylva, and many of her autographed photo-
graphs; original and unpublished poems by
many of the best poets of the age, and auto-
graphed manuscripts of the published works
of Oscar II., late King of Sweden, Lamartine,
Franjois Copp£e, Jules Lemaltre, Jean Riche-
pin, Andrf Theuriet, the two Dumas, Pierre
Loti, Count Tolstoy, G. Hanotaux, Sully
Prudhomme, Stephen Phillips, George Sand.
Paul Verlaine, and Prince Mirza Riza Khan,
the Persian poet who wrote the famous " Echos
of the Conference of the Hague," which has
been translated into every modern language,
and for which he received in addition to his
royal title that of the "Prince of Peace." He
shares with Omar and Hafiz the glory of Per-
sian literature. There are hundreds of others,
about one-third being manuscripts of American
writers.
The story of this man's business life is
scarcely less interesting than that of his library.
He was born at Marion, la., in 1856, the son
of well-to-do but not wealthy parents. His
grandfather was a Methodist circuit minister,
one of the Iowa pioneers. He graduated
with the degree of M. A. from Cornell College,
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A LIBRARY OF AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS
12845
Iowa , in 1876, and a few months later went
into the real-estate business on a capital of
$10. For two years this sum did not materially
increase. Then he had an Idea.
" God wasn't going to make another acre of
land," he told me, "but He was making
babies all the time.,,
Mr. Young found a rich banker friend who
had faith enough in his idea, his ability, and
his integrity to lend the money that he needed.
So he proceeded to buy farm lands in the
Northwest against the time when the babies
should be men. Instinctively he chose land
lying along the great railroad systems which
eventually spread a network of steel over
Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas. He bought
all the land that he could get. He invested all
the money that he could beg or borrow. He
went in on joint accounts with wealthy men,
among them Jay Cooke, whose Western
representative he was for many years. He
bought 55,000 acres of cut-over timber land
in Minnesota at twenty-five cents an acre.
He bought thousands of acres in the Dakotas
and Iowa at prices ranging from $1 to $2 an
acre. God made no more land, but the babies
kept right on growing up, and followed Horace
Greeley's advice to "go West." They had to
have land, and James Carleton Young was
able to accommodate them.
That 55,000 acres in Minnesota is to-day
about the finest potato land in the country.
It is worth two hundred times what he paid
for it. So with the other farm land. Some
of it brought as high as $1,500 an acre as
town- sites. Rich coal veins and iron ores
underlaid other property. The gods of fortune
were preparing the way for this library.
There were reverses, of course. One of
the periodic panics put him $500,000 in debt,
but he paid 100 cents on the dollar, and made
another fortune. To-day, despite it all, he
looks like a man of forty years, instead of
fifty-four. Several years ago, Mr. Young
began to gradually withdraw from active
business. He still maintains an office to look
after his large interests, but his one business
now is his library.
Mr. Young has been honored abroad by
unanimous election to the SociSti Des Amis Des
Livres of Paris, perhaps the most exclusive
book club in the world. He is one of three
foreign members. Carmen Sylva is another.
He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical
Society of London, and a member of practically
all the book clubs of importance in this country
— such as the Grolier, the Caxton, and the
Rowfant. Last year his Alma Mater con-
ferred on him the degree of Doctor of Litera-
ture, the first degree of the kind ever presented
by that college.
Since his library crowded him out of his
Minneapolis residence, Mr. JToung and his
wife and daughter make the Plaza Hotel,
Loring Park, Minneapolis, their winter home;
and in summer he divides his time between his
country house on the banks of the Mississippi,
^A&Cim^lfo***
MR. STEDMAN'S ACCOUNT OF THE EVOLUTION OF "VIC-
TORIAN POETS"
near the St. Paul Town and Country Club, and
another estate, Brook Lodge, near Lake
Pepin, Minnesota, where he has three or four
cottages and a five-mile trout stream to whip.
Occasionally he wanders over to Europe to
search a few bookstalls and renew acquain-
tances with his literary friends, but he doesn't
like to remain too long away from that library.
It has been his life for eighteen years.
This great collection has been from its
inception a serious enterprise, seriously carried
forward. "I resolved that I would devote
my life to the formation of a library of literary
masterpieces,,, he said, "believing that it would
be the most adequate tribute that I could
pay to the art of literature."
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"TRADING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT"
THE HE AUNG POWER OF GOD BARTERED LIKE A PATENT MEDICINE — THE
GATEWAY TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SENTINELED BY THE DOLLAR-MARK
BY
CLIFFORD HOWARD
WHEN Phineas P. Quimby, the New
England clockmaker, unknowingly
laid hold upon the transcendental
thought of the ages and turned it to material
account for the benefit of suffering humanity,
he little recked of the consequences that would
spring from it. That God is all there is —
the one Reality, in Whom we live and move
and have our being — is a creed that man has
been reciting since the dawn of consciousness,
but it remained for "Dr." Quimby (and later
for Mr. Dresser and Mrs. Eddy and other
expositors) to discover in it a therapeutic
agency.
That which Peter and Stephen and Paul
gave their lives to preach, a thousand latter-day
apostles are appraising by troy weight and
doling out at so much per scholium.
He who is awake to the activities of the
world needs no statistics to convince him of
the present wide-spread hold of this new gos-
pel, under such denominations as New
Thought, Christian Science, Spiritual Healing,
Divine Science, Practical Christianity, Raja
Yoga, the Emmanuel Movement, and the like.
Every town has its healers and its teachers,
and every corner of the land has its men and
women who have been restored to health and
happiness through "the Spirit.,, The physi-
cian is joining hands with the pastor in the
practice of psychotherapy; the stage is preach-
ing the New Thought; the daily press is
giving space to its doctrines; orthodox churches
are holding spiritual clinics; and, in response
to a demand which a dozen or more special
publishing concerns (born of* the new move-
ment) are unable to satisfy, the regular
publishing-houses are issuing Christian Sci-
ence novels and New Thought text-books.
This article is not concerned with the new
"gospel" from the standpoint of either the-
ology or medicine. It wishes only to call
attention to a condition which has grown up
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Google
around this evangel, namely, the extent of
the new business of trading in the Holy Spirit.
The opportunities for money-making offered
by the present popular enthusiasm have
opened the way to many practices and ventures
which, shorn of their pious and evangelical
embroidery, are nothing more nor less than
business enterprises for marketing the power
of God.
Whatever may be the differences that dis-
tinguish the many cults at present in the field,
their teachings all come to a common focus
in the declaration that it is God, or the Spirit
within us, that heals; or, as we find it stated
in "Science and Health": "Truth does the
work; it is the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost
or Christ," the so-called "healer" being but
the humble instrument through which the
divine power is made manifest. Yet wherever
we turn in search for the Truth, whether it be
to this school or to that school, we find the
gateway to the Kingdom of Heaven sentineled
by the dollar-mark.
When the first interested witnesses of Mrs.
Eddy's work offered her money, saying, "Give
us also of this power, that on whomsoever we
lay our hands he may receive the Spirit and be
made whole," the founder of Christian Sci-
ence, lending a gracious ear to opportunity,
willingly agreed to impart the gift of God far
a cash consideration. The price she asked
was $300 for each pupil.
With this as a precedent, all the various
cults that have sprung up in the wake of
Christian Science are to-day offering like
opportunities for searchers after Truth to
obtain the gift of God. Individuals and
organizations alike are vigorously advertising
the merits of their respective systems. Many
of these systems, like hair-dressing or the col-
lection business, are taught by mail; many
are imparted personally; others, again, are
contained in books and sold by their authors;
i
TRADING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT"
12847
still others are to be obtained from regularly
established schools and institutes.
A New York advertiser, for example, offers to
give you a complete course in the " Science of Life"
for $10. "Cosmic Consciousness is Power!
Full and complete instructions for normal psy-
chological development of conscious and subcon-
scious powers."
A Massachusetts apostle advertises to give you
lessons in mental healing, "enabling you to get
and keep the health which is your God-given
right. Terms moderate."
A Chicago teacher will impart to you, by mail,
"The Sacred Science of Regeneration" for $10,
with privilege of correspondence.
Another, for fifty cents, will send you a letter
from "the Silence," bringing comfort to those in
sorrow.
And another asks, in a display advertisement,
" Is your Soul starving ? " If it is, "seek the words
which will give life to your soul and health to your
flesh." (He will sell you the necessary word$ for
twenty-five cents, postpaid).
The publisher of a New Thought magazine
offers to give you four lessons on the "Realization
of Health and Success" if you will respond at once
with $3; for this sum, in addition to these lessons
(which, according to published testimonials, have
cured rheumatism and wrinkles), you will also
receive $3.50 worth of books, besides motto-cards,
a Madonna picture, and a half-tone of "Margareta,
the beautiful little girl from South America who
is being raised on the no-meat plan."
Another publisher will send you "free, a valuable
self-healing lesson now selling at twenty-five cents.
Enclose a two-cent stamp for postage." And still
another publisher of a magazine devoted to the
dissemination of spiritual Truth will send you for
twelve cents, if you order now, a series of his own
healing lessons "telling how to heal the sick by the
power of prayer, Divine Science, laying-on of
hands, etc."
A Michigan advertiser will send by express
twenty-five pages of personal, typewritten instruc-
tions to prospective mothers, teaching them how,
through Divine Will, they may produce any
desired type of genius — "musician, inventor,
etc." Price, $3.
A California teacher of Practical Metaphysics
will give you fourteen lectures on the "Philosophy
of Living" for $35.
A Boston teacher asks $60 for his "System of
Philosophy concerning Divinity;" but if you will
enroll as a student in his correspondence course
within the next ten days, you may have the entire
course for $15 cash.
A Kentucky author hopes you will send for her
"remarkable book. It explains the simple law
of Life, and its truths are Marvelous. Price, $1."
A Chicago feminine scribe announces in big
type that "Jesus Has Come to the World," and
through her has written a book giving a history
of His moral and spiritual life up to the present
time. You may have a copy of the book for
twenty-five cents, postpaid.
The foregoing are typical examples of the
individual advertiser, chosen at random from
a multitudinous list. The schools, leagues,
institutes, and "universities" that have sprung
up like toadstools throughout the length and
breadth of the land for dispensing the gift of
God are proportionally no less numerous.
Their prices, however, are generally higher
and their advertising methods more business-
like. Each claims to give you the most for
your money and teach the only genuine Truth.
For instance, a Los Angeles school of Meta-
physics advertises that its curriculum includes
the practical truths of all other mind-healing
methods. The tuition for the complete course,
consisting of two sets of lectures, is only $10.
A New York League of Right Thinking has also
two courses of instruction for sale. They are
given by mail. The price of course No. 1, twelve
lessons on the attainment of mental and physical
health and the inter-relation of mind and body, is
$3.25. Course No. 2 is $18, ana consists of twelve
text-books on psychotherapy. The league also
publishes a monthly magazine, at $1 a year, and
will give prompt and full reply to letters on personal
and private matters. Price of each reply, $1.
A California Soul-Culture institute offers com-
plete mail-courses of instruction in Suggestion,
Art of Living, Self-Healing, Inspiration, Concen-
tration, and Psychic Development. The price of
each course is $10. The catalogue of the institute
says: "In offering these courses to the public we
feel confident that nothing approaching them in
value have ever been produced in the correspond-
ence line. ... If you are searching for a
clear exposition of what is known as the New
Thought, you will find this to be the fountain
where you may drink and be satisfied." The
course in Suggestion "is for progressive people,
those who want something good and are willing
to pay a legitimate price for the same. . . . The
knowledge gained from these lessons saves one
doctor-bills, failure, and discontent, and insures
health, success, and happiness." The course in
the Art of Living is defined as "the key to Healing
and Self-Development in all Spiritual gifts." The
institute advertises that it also conducts a summer-
school of New Thought. This school, it is stated,
is conducted by a teacher who has no superior
in the nation. Tuition, $10. As an incidental
attraction, the president of the institute gives
absent treatments for all manner of ills — $10 for
three months — and will also read your character
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12848
"TRADING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT"
and give you advice on matters of Life. "He has
had thirty years' experience and rarely fails to read
correctly." His charge in each case is one dollar.
A Boston school of Unfoldment announces that
"A New Heaven and New Earth" is realizable by
means of its lessons, which are furnished by mail
at $1 each. It will also sell you a course in divine
healing for $5, payable in advance.
A New York school of New Thought sells
various courses of lessons. The course on Cosmic
Consciousness is $25. The New Thought Healing
course is also $25. Grapho-Psychology — the
Science of Success — is $10. Psychology of the
Breath is $5. This includes a lesson on "Two
Atmospheres and Pranic Union." Six lessons on
Secrets of Abundance cost $25. These include
"Divine Opulence," "Abundance of Supply,"
"Conscious Ideation,,, "Divine Transference,"
etc. The price of the complete course, consisting
in all of forty lessons, is $100.
A Colorado school. of Divine Science offers a
teachers' and practitioners' course and a minis-
terial course. Price for the two courses, $125.
Gradu ates . receive diplomas.
A Washington Metaphysical "university" also
prepares students to teach and heal. The course
is completed in one month and the price is $100.
But would you have the only true knowledge
in these matters divine — would you possess
the ne plus ultra of spiritual instructions and
revelation — there is seemingly but one path
open to you: a correspondence course in a
certain New York school of Metaphysics.
At all events, read what the president of the
school himself says in his 78-page descriptive
catalogue:
"If you want the real thing in healing know-
ledge you must have these Courses, for nothing
eles Equally efficient in Ideas, System, or Power
has ever been produced anywhere. . . The
strength and beauty of this system have not been
surpassed by any philosophy in modern thought.
Thinkers have declared that it contains the founda-
tion of the religion of the future. . . We feel
that the world should have the true statement
about this, but we find it impossible to state half
of the actual truth about it without endangering
our reputation for veracity, as the statements
seem impossible. . . Course VI is a Book
handsomely bound in full Morocco, gold edge,
and furnished with a substantial lock, as the con-
tents are important and private, being issued to
Graduating Pupils only. No such book as this
exists anywhere else in the world. The real value
of its contents is inestimable. . . Those who
patiently follow out the System, as planned, will
gain a knowledge that cannot otherwise be
obtained, and gain a power unknown to the world
at large."
This inestimable knowledge, including a
supplemental normal course, may be had for
$500. Should any doubting Thomas question
the value of so large an investment, he will
meet his just rebuke in the twelve pages of
enthusiastic testimonials that adorn the school
catalogue.
Twenty-five years ago Mrs. Eddy, with her
Massachusetts Metaphysical College, was the
only teacher of the kind in the United States.
Yet even then there was no lack of students,
As Mrs. Eddy herself states in the preface to
her " Science and Health," "during seven
years over four thousand students were taught
by the author in this College." Having at that
time no competitors in the field, she had no
difficulty in fixing and maintaining the price
for the sale of the Holy Spirit; but so many
rival schools have since arisen that the price
of Truth has very materially declined. A
full course of instructions in Christian Science,
consisting of twelve lessons, may now be had
for $50.
Great numbers are daily coming into health
and peace through Christian Science and other
theopathic teachings. And let it be borne in
mind that the very great* majority of these
converts to the Truth are sincere and deeply
earnest; that many of them have come into the
fold, because, like the poor woman of Galilee,
they previously had suffered many things of
many physicians, and had spent aJl they had
and were nothing bettered, but rather grew
worse; that many of them, too, have come
from the churches — unsatisfied and anxious
souls in eager search for the light.
It is worthy of note that there are many
teachers of the new "gospel" who would no
more think of regarding their work as a busi-
ness enterprise than would the Apostles them-
selves have so treated their mission. There
are, in fact, not a few — particularly among a
certain sect of the New Thought school -
who put no price whatever on their work, but
depend wholly upon the free-will offerings of
their disciples and patients.
Indeed, of the many thousands who haw
so far taken up the work of spiritual healing
as a profession, there are comparatively few
who have been drawn to it primarily through
selfish motives and who are not sincerely
earnest in their beliefs and practice. If, then,
it be asked why these practitioners accept
money for their services, seeing that it is not
they but God who heals, the question is
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"TRADING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT"
12849
met by the quotation from Jesus, "The laborer
is worthy of his hire." Their lives are dedi-
cated to the work. They give abundantly of
their time and their energies and they ask no
more in return than what is deemed necessary
to sustain them — $1 a treatment, or $5 a week,
being the commonly adopted schedule of fees.
If the matter rested here there could be no
just cause for criticism. But it does not end
here. There are certain healers who, for one
reason or another, regard themselves as better
able to dispense the Spirit, and they think it
proper to charge accordingly. Hence, there
are those who do not hesitate to charge $100
a month, or $5 and $10 a treatment, whether
absent or present. Here, for example, is the
card of a healer of this class:
Special Interview $3
Present Attention 2
Absent Attention 2
Continuous, per hour 10
Special Letters $2 to 5
Letters of Instruction 10
Instruction in Class 100
Instruction by Correspondence 50
It is healers of this kind who indulge freely
in advertising. Adorning a display card with
a picture of his benevolent face, a typical healer
makes the following offer to the public through
the medium of a New Thought magazine:
" One case free J I will heal one case in each
neighborhood, no matter what the disease or how
serious, free of charge. A healed case is my best
advertisement."
Others distribute circulars, setting forth
their merits as divine healers and backing up
their conceits with enthusiastic testimonials.
All the persuasive arts of the patent-medicine
man are called into play. The Holy Spirit
shares with somebody's sarsaparilla and some
other's whiskey the attractive charm of being
a sure cure for whatever ails you. One
practitioner of this kind, tagging himself
"D. D. H." (Doctor of Divine Healing),
announces in a four-page circular, with several
testimonials and press-notices and a large
portrait of himself labeled "Founder of Divine
Healing," that he has never seen a disease
that he could not cure.
"Many cases of blindness, deafness, and defor-
mities have disappeared under the magic touch
of his fingers. He cures as the Master did. If
sick, why not try the Divine way? Back to the
Divine Way!"
Publishing a magazine in conjunction with
the business of absent healing is a method of
advertising adopted by several of the more
prominent and aggressive "metaphysicians."
They themselves contribute the larger part
of all the reading matter, while the advertis-
ing section is monopolized by their own
announcements.
Here, for example, is the back-page adver-
tisement appearing in a magazine of this sort:
"I give treatments for Health, Happiness, and
Prosperity. The universe is in you, else you
could not be in the universe. Treatments are
given to this paper and also to the pink paper and
envelopes used in our correspondence. I call
your name in the Silence and send you vibrations
by transference of thought. This is mental fel-
lowship. There is also financial fellowship, for
you want what you want when you want it. Send
me one dollar a month for one treatment each day
and enrollment in the Fellowship. Five dollars
a month will give you treatments several times a
day. Correspondence confidential and sacred to
myself and wife, with no third party handling your
letters. You can open your souls to us. We
love you."
The practice of "treating" magazines and
letters, referred to by this healer, is not uncom-
mon. It is extended also to other inanimate
objects — handkerchiefs, mottos, and so on —
and not only may health be thus vicariously
acquired through such spiritualized talismans,
but financial prosperity as well. A certain
New Thought society has recently adopted
the practice of sending a blessed dollar-bill to
any one asking for it. Each one of these dol-
lars is specially "treated" for good luck and
prosperity, and is warranted, through the
operation of the Holy Spirit, to bring success
to the one who receives and uses it.
This novel venture was primarily undertaken
for the purpose of raising funds for the society,
and the method by which the Spirit was to
be employed in the matter is thus outlined in
a November issue of the society's magazine:
"We will send you a one-dollar bill, which has
received a blessing, with a daily prosperity state-
ment attached, which you are to use every day
until December 20th, when it is to be returned to
us, with the increase which has come as the result
of the treatments. We are so sure that the law
will work for the faithful, that we are willing to
send out thousands of dollars on trust. All we
ask is faithfulness in believing in God, our supply,
and in making daily the statements for prosperity
which accompany the dollar."
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"TRADING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT5
The recipient of the consecrated dollar
signed the following acknowledgment:
"I acknowledge the trust imposed in me by the
Holy Spirit in the deposit of a Prosperity Dollar,
which symbol of the One Power I shall daily recog-
nize in thought and word," etc.
And here is the statement he was to make each
day after receiving the sacred dollar:
"Thou, O God, art my Mighty Resource and I
trust and believe in Thy Unfailing Bounty, con-
stantly increasing and multiplying in my mind
and affairs, through the consciousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ."
And did the plan succeed? Is there profit
in capitalizing Divinity? Read the society's
own published announcement following the
returns of the first allotment of anointed dol-
lars:
"At this writing the returns are not all in, but a
rough estimate may be made. We sent out $2,300,
ninety per cent, of which has been returned to us
with an increase of 150 per cent."
This means, that in return for $2,070 the society
received back $5,175, and this within a period
of less than two months.
How these dollars, through the working of
the Holy Spirit, prosper the recipients and at
the same time earn so large a profit for the
donor, is illustrated in the following two testi-
monials, chosen as typical examples from the
large number of letters received and published
by the society.
"I enclose my Prosperity Dollar with increase
amounting to $5 — $4 increase — the result of
eight days holding the thought and five days'
practical work investing the dollar in material
sandwiches and selling the same."
"I have enjoyed the Prosperity Dollar and
watched results closely, and I have thus far realized
$1.25. First I was on the trolley car, and a lady
who had owed me 25 cents for so long that I had
forgotten it, called out to me and came and
put the 25 cents into my hand. I am still faith-
fully holding the Word."
The curing of financial ills as well as physical
troubles, is a phase of the new spiritual thought
that is being rapidly developed. The term
"Practitioner" or "Metaphysician" is sup-
planting that of "Healer" as being less restric-
tive in its significance. Those versed in
" Truth " do not now confine themselves to
bodily ailments and mental afflictions. They
will give you treatments for poverty or loss of
position, or lack of success.
One woman, for example, advertises that
she will reveal to you for the small sum of out
dollar how to obtain our invisible sup fly. " We
cannot conceive," she says in her modest ad-
vertisement, "how any one can remain in
poverty or misfortune after reading this book"
A brother philanthropist, a professional dis-
penser of arcana celestia, will for the same
price sell you "The Path to Power." Co*
cerning this, the advertisement says, "Yob
can double your earning power with no increase
of work." Another teacher will show you for
fifty cents "How to Grow Success," and stiE
another will point out to you the "New Road
to Opulence" if you will send him a dune:
while a Boston practitioner — typical of a
large class — advertises that for $5 a montt
she will help you to demonstrate "that the
Infinite is an ever-present help."
All these teachings and practices rest upa
the declaration that God is our supply; as
one prominent New Thought writer asd
preacher expresses it:
"When I want anything I always go to the place
where I can get everything I want without bang
turned down. . . I go to God Almighty. If
I want money I ask Him for it. I want more*
and I want plenty of it and 1 don't want it pinched"
And another pastor, speaking to the same
text, assures the faithful that "Almighty
Dollar is but a symbol of Almighty God
Therefore, when the voice of the Etara
Word says in you '/ am money,' you as
safely get out your bank book!"
The foregoing is but a brief presentment a
certain present-day facts, naked of adorn-
ment beyond that of their own furnishing.
Whether the religio-psychopathic movement
to which they relate is to be catalogued among
the many popular delusions that have led the
world awry, or whether it marks the restless
morning of a new dispensation, who shall at
this moment declare?
But, whichever it be, the commercial aspects
of the subject here revealed are not without
their serious meaning. Their present dis-
closure, however, implies no desire to impugn
the motives of many men and women who are
engaged in the spread of the new gospel. "It
is self-evident," says Mrs. Eddy, " that the dis-
coverer of an eternal truth cannot be a temporal
fraud." Let us, therefore, extend the mantfc
of this logic to all other teachers of the Troth
and grant at once their honesty of purpose.
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is the quality of fats and oils used— Fairy Soap is
made from edible products— with no dyes, high per-
fumes or adulterations to deceive the eye or delude
the sense of smell. Fairy Soap is honest soap^
all the way through. Its price, five cents,
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Ilk,.
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flltaiw . CHICAGO.
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